EXCHANGE 


With  the  Compliments  of 

YALE  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 

NEW  HAVEN.  CONN..  U.  S.  A. 


CHRISTIANITY   OLD   AND   NEW 


CHRISTIANITY  OLD 

AND  NEW 


LECTURES  GIVEN  AT  BERKELEY,  CAL. 

ON   THE 

E.  T.  EARL  FOUNDATION 


By 

BENJAMIN  W.  BACON 

•i 
Professor  of  New  Testament  Criticism  and 
Interpretation  in  Yale  University 


NEW  HAVEN:  YALE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

LONDON:   HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

MDCCCCXIV 


J33 


Copyright,  1914 
By  Yale  University  Press 


First  printed  February,  1914,  750  copies 


TO 
E.  B.  B. 


282830 


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PREFACE 

To  the  auditors  who  two  years  ago 
kindly  expressed  their  appreciation  of 
the  lectures  to  which  they  had  listened 
by  requesting  their  immediate  publica- 
tion, a  word  of  apology  is  due  in  view  of 
delay  in  the  appearance  of  the  present 
volume. 

Change  of  substance  there  has  been 
none,  and  the  very  slight  change  of 
wording  and  occasional  expansion  for 
greater  clearness  which  have  been 
effected  might  have  been  carried  through 
in  a  comparatively  brief  time,  had  not 
other,  and  more  imperative,  duties  inter- 
vened. It  is  hoped  that  the  addition  now 
of  the  essay  entitled  Old  and  New  in  the 
Characterization  of  Jesus  may  compen- 
sate for  the  delay,  and  in  a  sense  bring 
the  discussion  down  to  date. 

The  issue  which  in  1911  had  already 
begun  to  be  drawn  is  today  far  more 
acute.  More  clearly  than  ever  the  world 
of  today  is  called  upon  to  choose  between 
the   gospel   of   Jesus,    and   the   gospel 

[vii] 


Pkeface 

about  Jesus,  between  a  so-called  ^liberaP 
Christianity,  in  which  social  ethics  pre- 
dominates, and  a  Christianity  which 
promises  a  new  and  mystical  relation  of 
the  individual  with  God,  whether  the 
means  it  offers  for  the  attainment  of 
this  end  be  regarded  as  symbol  or  fact. 

History  affords  the  only  adequate 
basis  of  judgment  and  we  have  sought  to 
make  clear  the  lines  at  least  along  which 
a  historical  judgment  should  proceed. 

But  the  critic  of  the  New  Testament 
has  a  further  task.  If  *the  historical 
Jesus'  is  to  play  any  part  in  the  ^reli- 
gion of  the  future'  criticism  must  vin- 
dicate the  distinctive  traits  of  his  moral 
and  religious  character  as  the  Church 
has  received  it.  To  what  extent  this  is 
possible,  and  by  what  solvent  the  con- 
flicting schools  of  critical  opinion  may 
be  made  to  serve  the  end  of  a  sober  judg- 
ment, it  is  the  object  of  the  concluding 
essay  to  determine.  Neither  the  Helle- 
nistic title,  *Lord,'  nor  the  Jewish  title, 
*Son  of  man,'  nor  both  combined,  ex- 
hibit all  that  primitive  faith  found  in  the 
person  of  Jesus.    While  the  title,  'Ser- 

[viii] 


Peeface 

vant/  has  almost  disappeared,  the  con- 
ception of  Jesus'  character  and  career 
as  corresponding  to  that  of  the  suffering 
Servant  of  Isaiah  has  left  indelible 
traces  in  the  earliest  literature,  and 
gives  us  another  and  indispensable 
means  of  definition. 

If  the  present  volume  shall  serve  to 
set  in  clearer  light  before  a  wider  circle 
the  task  of  the  historian  of  religion  in 
general,  and  of  the  student  of  Christian 
origins  in  particular,  its  own  existence 
and  the  author's  hope  will  be  justified. 

B.  W.  Bacon. 
Yale  University,  January,  1914. 


[ix] 


ANALYTICAL  TABLE  OF 
CONTENTS 

Preface .      vii 

I.  The  EvoLUTioiT  of  Eeligion 
AND  HisTOEic  Types  of  Chris- 
tianity              1 

I.  The  tendency  of  human  progress  in 
culture  and  enlightenment  is  not  to  discard 
religion,  but  to  deepen  and  refine  it.  Plas- 
ticity of  form  a  token  of  vitality.  Mediaeval- 
ism  vs.  Modernism. 

II.  Historically,  religions  may  be  classi- 
fied according  to  the  preponderance  of  the 
self-regarding  or  the  altruistic  impulse. 
Nature  religions  and  national  religions. 
Christianity  combines  both  types.  Imperial 
persecution  was  incurred  chiefly  because  of 
its  social  ideal. 

III.  History  must  furnish  the  criteria  of 
further  development.  The  Evolutionary 
principle  has  been  applied  to  religion  in 
general  and  to  biblical  literature  in  par- 
ticular. ''Inspiration''  does  not  affect  the 
principle;  for  a  Christian  doctrine  of  Scrip- 
ture makes  Scripture  subservient  to  ''the 
manifestation  of  the  life."     Hence: 

[xi] 


Contents 

rV.  The  alternative  types  of  reconstructed 
Christianity,  the  Ethical  and  the  Mystical, 
alike  appeal  to  its  history  and  must  be  judged 
by  it. 

II.     Nineteenth     Cbntuey     Lib- 

EBALISM 43 

I.  President  Eliot's  ''Religion  of  the  Fu- 
ture." Criticism  has  restored  the  portrait 
of  the  historic  Jesus.  But  Christianity  began 
as  a  gospel  about  Jesus,  and  cannot  be  re- 
stored by  reproducing  the  gospel  of  Jesus. 

II.  For  the  historic  portrait  the  factor  of 
miracle  is  subordinate  and  incidental.  The 
resurrection  does  not  belong  in  this  category. 
Results  of  criticism  applied  to  the  Matthaean 
tradition  of  the  Precepts  of  Jesus,  and  to  the 
Petrine  tradition  of  his  Career. 

III.  The  ideals  of  the  gospel  of  Jesus  are 
historically  determinable,  and  are  ultimate. 
But  they  constitute  only  the  prenatal  form  of 
Christianity.  Historically  it  is  a  gospel  about 
Jesus,  originating  with  the  resurrection  as  a 
psychological  experience  of  primitive  be- 
lievers, and  propagated  under  Greek  influ- 
ences. 

IV.  The  reformed  Judaism  of  the  Jewish- 
Christian  churches  in  A.  D.  50-150,  and  their 
mediaeval  successor  Islam,  are  in  line  with 


[  xii 


Contents 

the  ''liberar'  ideal.  *'The  religion  of  the 
future ' '  must  include  the  Pauline,  Hellenistic 
factor,  the  gospel  of  *'God  in  Christ." 

III.     Twentieth  Century  Mythi- 
cal Idealism 84 

I.  Christianity  without  the  historic  Jesus. 
The  Monists'  propaganda  is  important  as  a 
symptom.  It  indicates  reaction  from  social 
toward  individual  religion,  and  thus  con- 
forms to  the  real  history  of  Christian  origins. 
Kesults  of  recent  study  by  the  methods  of 
comparative  religion. 

II.  Personal  religion  in  the  European 
sense  may  be  regarded  broadly  as  a  product 
of  Gragco-Roman  cosmopolitanism;  but  it  did 
not  and  could  not  develop  on  the  basis  of 
allegorized  mythology.  Christianity  prevailed 
because  of  its  stronger  foundation  in  historic 
fact.  Peter,  the  associate  of  Jesus,  antecedent 
to  Paul  in  the  founding  of  the  Church.  The 
pre-Pauline  rite  of  baptism  ' '  into  the  name  of 
Jesus"  as  the  Christ,  ''for  the  forgiveness  of 
sin." 

III.  Mythical  idealism  repeats  the  error 
of  the  docetic  Gnostics.  Christianity  remains 
the  doctrine  that  ' '  Jesus  is  the  Christ, ' '  with 
equal  emphasis  on  both  terms,  however  his- 
torical criticism  may  depict  the  one  and  the 
psychology  of  religion  restate  the  other. 
Recapitulation. 

[  xiii  ] 


Contents 
Essay  :  Old  and  New  in  the  Chae- 

ACTEKIZATION  OF  JeSUS   .        .        .       119 

I.  Criticism  seeks  the  concrete  basis  of 
fact  behind  myth  and  legend  by  an  instinc- 
tive sense  of  value.  Sources  for  a  character 
study  of  Jesus. 

II.  Paul's  moral  judgment  of  'the 
Spirit'  based  on  his  knowledge  of  the  char- 
acter of  Jesus.  But  this  knowledge  was 
idealized  in  the  conception  of  the  Isaian  suf- 
fering Servant. 

III.  Gospel  sources  also  give  an  idealized 
portrait.  But  in  Mark  and  Q  a  true  tradi- 
tion is  traceable  behind  the  idealization.  In 
Mark  Jesus  is  the  Strong  Son  of  God.  In  Q 
the  suffering  Servant,  as  in  Paul.  'Consist- 
ent eschatology'  gives  a  one-sided  interpre- 
tation. 

IV.  Comparison  of  the  Pauline  with  the 
Markan  portraiture.  The  two  conceptions 
mutually  supplementary.  The  conception  in 
Q.  Dominated  by  the  doctrine  of  'Wisdom' 
as  the  redeeming  Spirit  of  God  indwelling  in 
man.  But  this  source  is  too  early  to  permit 
the  acceptance  of  a  fictitious  portrait.  In  the 
combination  of  conceptions  in  Paul,  Mark,  and 
Q,  we  have  a  critically  historical  portraiture 
of  Jesus. 


[  xiv 


THE  EVOLUTION  OF  EELIGION 

AND  HISTORIC  TYPES  OF 

CHRISTIANITY 

I.  To  speak  of  **tlie  evolution  of 
religion*'  implies  a  conception  of  it  as 
advancing  in  continuous  change  from 
lower  to  higher  forms.  In  point  of  fact, 
we  hazard  the  assertion  that  it  not  only 
has  advanced,  but  is  still  advancing,  and 
will  continue  to  advance  with  the  pro- 
gress of  culture  and  enlightenment. 
Our  primary  proposition  is  that  the 
tendency  of  human  progress  is  not  to 
discard  religion,  but  to  deepen  and 
refine  it.  However,  this  proposition  will 
not  command  assent  without  careful 
definition. 

Religion  may  be  so  defined  as  to 
incline  us  all  to  agree  with  that  radical 
school  of  sociologists  who  classify  it 
with  the  folkways  that  vanish  with  other 
delusions,  poetic,  and  perhaps  tempo- 

[1] 


'      '"'tfelMSTIAiTITY.OLD   AND   NeW 

rarily  useful,  before  the  advance  of 
science.  The  definition  of  religion 
which  I  propose  is  that  of  Carlyle: 

**Not  that  to  which  in  words  or  otherwise  a 
man  will  give  assent,  but  what  he  lays  prac- 
tically to  heart  and  knows  for  certain  con- 
cerniag  his  vital  relations  to  the  mysterious 
universe  and  his  duty  and  destiny  there — 
this/'  says  Carlyle,  ''is  his  religion.'' 

**Duty  and  destiny'*  in  the  mysterious 
universe !  The  doctrine  of  evolution  has 
brought  changes  unparalleled  in  the  his- 
tory of  thought  to  our  conceptions  of 
''this  mysterious  universe"  and  our 
vital  relations  to  it.  Is  it  any  wonder 
that  our  convictions  of  ''duty  and  des- 
tiny*' are  changing,  too?  Only  a  dead 
religion,  a  religion  imposed  from  with- 
out, cast  in  the  unchanging  moulds  of 
the  past,  enforced  under  the  other- 
worldly penalties  of  dogma,  could  fail 
to  respond.  Our  religion  is  proving  its 
vitality  by  changing  in  answer  to  new 
views  of  the  universe.  This  is  the  real 
significance  of  that  vast  new  alignment 
called  by  Vatican  authority — and  well 
called — 'modernism.*      But    modernism 

[2] 


Evolution"  of  Eeligion 

is  not  irreligion.  It  is  an  awakening 
to  the  need  of  religion  of  higher  type 
and  wider  scope.  It  knows  no  limita- 
tion to  Catholic  or  Protestant.  Petty 
distinctions  of  sect  and  denomination 
are  disappearing  before  the  conscious- 
ness of  an  immeasurably  more  momen- 
tous difference  cutting  sharply  across 
all  sectarian  lines:  Is  Christianity  a 
living,  vital  organism,  a  spirit  and 
instinct  of  religious  truth  destined  to 
perpetual  reincarnation  in  new  and 
varied  forms  as  the  race  advances?  Is 
it  an  interpretation  of  duty  and  destiny 
modifiable  without  other  limit  than  fidel- 
ity to  the  truth  of  the  past?  Or  is  it 
an  unalterable  inorganic  mass,  a  system 
committed  once  for  all  to  a  divinely 
appointed  hierarchy,  or  embodied  in  a 
miraculous  book?  That  is  the  issue 
of  Medievalism  versus  Modernism  on 
which  we  of  today  are  summoned  to 
decide.  The  issue  is  indeed  momentous. 
But  our  awakening  to  it  is  not  an  evi- 
dence of  the  passing  of  religion.  Eather 
the  contrary.  "We  feel  the  need  of  con- 
fronting anew  the  problems  of  duty  and 

[3] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

destiny.  And  till  men  cease  to  be  con- 
cerned with  these  problems  there  will 
be  religion. 

There  is  room  for  sympathy,  even  on 
the  part  of  modernists,  with  the  zeal  of 
the  champions  of  established  authority 
and  the  sharpness  with  which  they  have 
perceived  and  defined  the  issue.  At 
their  head  stand  the  forces  of  the  Vati- 
can, launching  successive  bulls  against 
the  twentieth  century,  straining  every 
ecclesiastical  power  to  chain  down  the 
minds  of  men  to  the  world-view  of 
Aquinas,  and  to  resist  their  efforts  to 
reconstruct  the  social  order.  The  ultra- 
montane policy  may  be  mistaken,  pos- 
sibly hopeless.  But  at  least  it  is  not 
blindly  acquiescent.  Instinctively  it 
feels  the  atmospheric  change  and  knows 
it  portends  momentous  things. 

It  perceives  conditions  as  they  are, 
and  has  courage  to  define  the  issue  on 
the  true  lines  of  cleavage.  Eome  may 
be  reactionary,  but  it  is  neither  cow- 
ardly nor  foolish.  It  has  appreciation, 
as  we,  too,  should  have,  of  the  values 
at    stake   in    days    of   changing   faith. 

[4] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

That  deepest  and  most  vital  thing  in 
man,  his  conviction  of  duty  and  destiny, 
the  meaning  he  gives  to  his  relation  to 
the  mysterious  universe  about  him — 
his  religion,  cannot  be  changed  without 
touching  the  very  springs  of  civiliza- 
tion, of  the  social  order,  of  existence 
itself.  But  neither  can  it  be  discarded. 
Religion  is  not  thrown  off  as  civilization 
advances;  it  only  becomes  more  subtle, 
more  refined,  lays  hold  more  deeply  on 
the  inner  fibres  of  our  being.  **Man  is 
incurably  religious,''  say  the  sociolo- 
gists. **  Religion  belongs  to  human 
nature, ' '  says  Benjamin  Kidd.  One  can 
almost  hear  the  sighs  they  heave  as  they 
admit  it.  Yes,  so  long  as  man  is  con- 
scious of  a  personality  at  cross  purposes 
with  the  universe,  and  is  thus  driven  to 
seek  adjustment  to  such  purpose,  or 
purposes,  as  he  may  find  in  it,  he  must 
in  some  sense  be  religious.  The  time 
may  come  when  we  shall  cease  to  be 
inconvenienced  by  personality,  with  its 
hopes  and  fears,  aspirations  and  ideals. 
We  may  become  evolved  into  mechan- 
isms.    Then,  of  course,  we  shall  have 

[5] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

gotten  beyond  religion.  Economics  will 
take  its  place.  For  the  present,  and  so 
far  as  human  foresight  extends  for  the 
future,  too,  religion  belongs  confessedly 
to  man's  nature. 

II.  Our  second  proposition  affirms  as 
a  phenomenon  of  history  that  religions 
may  be  classified  under  two  principal 
types,  according  to  the  preponderance 
in  them  of  the  self-regarding  or  the 
altruistic  impulse.  Christianity  com- 
bines the  two. 

In  days  of  changing  views  regarding 
the  mysterious  universe  and  our  rela- 
tion to  it  we  need  feel  no  surprise  at  pro- 
posed reconstructions  of  religion.  Man 
is  incurably  religious,  but  it  makes  a 
deal  of  difference  of  what  sort  his  reli- 
gion is.  It  may  be  debasing  or  uplift- 
ing, rational  or  superstitious:  but  so 
far  as  history  reveals  its  development 
it  inclines  always  to  one  or  other  of 
two  opposite  poles.  Either  it  will  be 
individualistic,  setting  up  as  the  para- 
mount ideal  the  perpetuation  and  wel- 
fare of  the  self;  or  it  will  be  socialistic, 

[6] 


Evolution  of  Religion 

in  the  sense  of  seeking  first  the  welfare 
of  the  group,  larger  or  smaller — the 
tribe,  the  brotherhood,  the  nation,  hu- 
manity, the  kingdom  of  God. 

For  the  purposes  of  the  present  dis- 
cussion I  shall  use  the  terms  **  Nature 
religions*'  and  ** National  religions''  as 
if  they  covered  the  same  ground  respec- 
tively as  *  individualistic"  and  **  social- 
istic. ' '  In  the  abstract  such  a  classifica- 
tion might  prove  hard  to  justify;  but 
for  the  particular  period  of  the  begin- 
nings of  our  own  religion  it  will  be  sub- 
stantially correct.  In  the  great  melting- 
pot  of  the  Roman  Empire  not  alone  the 
ancient  distinctions  of  tribe  and  nation- 
ality were  disappearing,  but  also  the 
ancient  national  religions.  They  were 
fast  crumbling  under  the  combined  on- 
slaught of  Greek  philosophy  and  Roman 
cosmopolitanism.  Such  as  refused  to  be 
universalized  disappeared.  And  to  uni- 
versalize the  old  religions  meant  in  most 
cases  to  make  them  center  upon  the 
individual  and  not  upon  the  tribe  or 
state. 

Together  with  the  decay  of  the  na- 

[7] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

tional  religions  the  early  Empire  wit- 
nessed a  prodigious  development  of 
interest  in  the  duty  and  destiny  of  the 
individual.  Personality  was  the  great 
discovery  of  the  Socratic  school  of  phi- 
losophy. It  wrote  over  its  portal  the 
Delphic  motto,  **Know  thyself /' Tj/w^t 
o-eavTOP.  But  man  cannot  take  himself 
as  **the  measure  of  all  things,''  he  can- 
not rise  to  a  sense  of  the  greatness  of  his 
own  *  personality,'  without  raising  ques- 
tions, aspirations,  longings,  as  to  the 
destiny  of  this  new-found  jewel  of  life, 
this  immeasurably  precious  thing  called 
'soul.'  Not  only  its  future  destiny  but 
also  its  present  relation  to  the  Infinite 
becomes  a  matter  of  vital  concern. 

We  cannot  be  surprised,  therefore, 
that  when  philosophy  in  the  semi-popu- 
lar form  of  the  Stoic  and  Cynic  *  dia- 
tribe,' the  street-preachers'  harangue, 
began  to  reach  the  masses  of  the  early 
Empire,  the  immediate  result  was  a  vast 
renaissance  of  the  old  nature  religions 
under  the  form  of  'mysteries';  for  these 
all  centered  upon  the  idea  of  personal 
redemption,  and  immortality  by  spirit- 

[8] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

ual  union  with  the  divinity.  The  myste- 
ries of  Attis,  Osiris,  Adonis,  the  cult  of 
Mithra  and  the  like,  spread  all  over  the 
Empire.  And  this  is  precisely  what 
should  have  been  anticipated.  Individ- 
ualistic religion  is  closely  related  to  na- 
ture-worship. The  human  spirit,  con- 
scious of  its  frailty,  instinctively  seeks 
alliance  with  the  boundless  Source  of 
life  and  power  endlessly  poured  out  in 
the  phenomena  of  the  living  creation. 
The  world  of  vegetation  annually  re- 
stored from  death,  the  animal  world,  the 
world  of  moving  heavenly  bodies  vari- 
able or  constant  in  their  orbits,  all  tell 
of  boundless  energy  and  life  somewhere 
in  store.  Man  aspires  to  union  with  the 
Soul  (or  souls)  of  the  living  world.  He 
hopes  thus  to  attain  to  larger,  perhaps 
eternal,  life  for  his  own  personality. 
Here  the  emphasis  of  religion  is  on 
destiny. 

With  social  religion  in  all  its  forms, 
ancestor-worship,  clan-worship,  tribe- 
worship,  national  religion,  the  reverse  is 
true.  The  individual  seeks  his  well- 
being  in  the  welfare  of  the  group.    The 

[9] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

emphasis  is  on  duty.  Individual  reli- 
gion, probably  for  the  reason  mentioned, 
seems  to  be  historically  rooted  in  nature- 
worship.  It  naturally  tends  toward 
mysticism.  National  religion  develops 
ethics.  In  the  one  case  the  goal  in  view 
comes  to  be  personal  immortality,  in  the 
other  it  becomes  the  new  social  order  of 
a  redeemed  race,  a  world-wide  kingdom 
of  righteousness,  equity,  and  truth. 

The  struggle  of  religions  in  the  period 
of  the  Antonines  for  supremacy  in  the 
Empire,  in  which  Christianity,  the  ulti- 
mate victor,  was  but  one  of  many  fac- 
tors, was  fundamentally  a  struggle  of 
the  individual  against  the  social  type, 
and  individual  religion  fell  back  for  its 
myths  and  forms  upon  the  ancient  prac- 
tices of  nature-worship.  Our  contention 
is  that  Christianity  combines  both  types, 
and  by  the  perfection  of  this  adjust- 
ment proves  its  right  to  be  the  ultimate 
world-religion. 

Graeco-Roman  Christianity  has  been 
denounced  as  predominantly  and  even 
selfishly  individualistic.  Gibbon  held  it 
largely  responsible  for  the  downfall  of 

[10] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

classic  civilization.  With  greater  jus- 
tice Lecky,  in  his  History  of  European 
Morals,  blames  rather  that  system  of 
medieval  other-worldliness  preached  in 
the  name  of  Christ  throughout  the  deca- 
dent Empire.  The  charge  is  given 
poetic  form  by  a  follower  of  Gibbon, 
who  paraphrases  the  legend  of  the  de- 
spairing death-cry  of  Julian  surnamed 
*the  Apostate'  for  his  fruitless  effort  to 
restore  the  pagan  faith.  Swinburne 
makes  the  Emperor's  dying  words  an 
echo  of  his  despair  over  the  fading 
ideals  of  Roman  imperialism  and  the 
decay  of  classic  civilization: 

Thou  hast  conquered,  0  pale  Galilean, 
The  world  has  grown  grey  from  thy  breath, 
We  have  drunken  of  things  Lethaean 
And  fed  on  the  fulness  of  death. 

But  the  curious  thing  about  these  con- 
demnations of  Christianity  as  a  religion 
so  one-sidedly  individualistic  as  to  lose 
all  altruistic  interest  in  the  welfare  of 
the  race,  is  that  they  completely  reverse 
its  basic  character.  For  Christianity  in 
itself,  whatever  the  special  develop- 
ments that  won  the  dislike  of  Gibbon 

[11] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

and  Swinburne,  and  which  centuries  be- 
fore had  led  the  Eoman  populace  to 
impute  to  the  new  sect  a  *  hatred  of 
humanity'  (odium  humani  generis),  is 
certainly  not  at  bottom  an  individual- 
istic religion.  It  springs  from  a  stock 
representing  the  extreme  of  the  oppo- 
site, the  social  type.  I  mean  Judaism, 
with  its  century-long  rejection  of  any 
doctrine  of  personal  immortality,  and 
its  systematic  concentration  of  religious 
hope  upon  the  *  messianic'  idea,  the  faith 
in  a  righteous  government  of  the  world. 
So  far  as  there  is  just  cause  of  com- 
plaint against  any  religion  for  the  de- 
struction of  the  magnificent  fabric  of 
classic  civilization  it  seems  to  be  far 
better  expressed  by  Frazer  in  a  chapter 
headed  *^  Oriental  Eeligions  in  the 
West,''  in  that  splendid  work  of  com- 
parative religion,  The  Golden  Bough, 
Part  II,  Adonis,  Attis,  Osiris  (1906). 
Frazer  thus  contrasts  the  national  reli- 
gion of  the  Empire  with  the  flood  of 
Oriental  nature  religions,  mystery-cults, 
religions  of  personal  redemption,  which 
undermined  it: 

[12] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

Greek  and  Roman  society  was  built  on  the 
conception  of  the  subordination  of  the  indi- 
vidual to  the  community,  of  the  citizen  to  the 
state;  it  set  the  safety  of  the  commonwealth, 
as  the  supreme  aim  of  conduct,  above  the 
safety  of  the  individual,  whether  in  this 
world  or  in  a  world  to  come.  Trained  from 
infancy  in  this  unselfish  ideal,  the  citizens 
devoted  their  lives  to  the  public  service  and 
were  ready  to  lay  them  down  for  the  common 
good;  or  if  they  shrank  from  the  supreme 
sacrifice  it  never  occurred  to  them  that  they 
acted  otherwise  than  basely  in  preferring 
their  personal  existence  to  the  interests  of 
their  country.  All  this  was  changed  by  the 
spread  of  Oriental  religions  which  inculcated 
the  commune  of  the  soul  with  God  and  its 
eternal  salvation  a^  the  only  objects  worth 
living  for,  objects  in  comparison  with  which 
the  prosperity  and  even  the  existence  of  the 
state  sank  into  insignificance.  The  inevitable 
result  of  this  selfish  and  immoral  doctrine 
was  to  withdraw  the  devotee  more  and  more 
from  the  public  service,  to  concentrate  his 
thoughts  on  his  own  spiritual  emotions  and 
to  breed  in  him  a  contempt  for  the  present 
life  which  he  regarded  merely  as  a  probation 

for  a  better  and  an  eternal A  general 

disintegration  of  the  body  politic  set  in. 

Is  it  then  possible  to  conceive  of  Chris- 
tianity (!)   as  **a  selfish  and  immoral 

[13] 


Chbistianity  Old  and  New 

doctrine''  indifferent  to  the  fate  of  the 
world  if  only  the  devotee  may  save  his 
paltry  soul  from  the  wreck?  That  is 
surely  far  enough  from  the  temper  of 
him  who  said:  *^He  that  would  save  his 
soul  shall  lose  it,  and  he  that  would  lose 
his  soul  for  the  kingdom's  sake  shall 
save  it."  Nevertheless  all  of  us  have 
experience  of  a  certain  one-sided  indi- 
vidualism often  accepted  as  true  Chris- 
tianity, wherein  the  very  doctrine  of 
self-devotion  for  the  kingdom  becomes 
a  counsel  of  farsighted  selfishness.  We 
know  that  the  teachings  of  Jesus  him- 
self can  be  so  interpreted  as  to  deserve 
the  epithets  Frazer  applies  to  the  Orien- 
tal religions  which  invaded  the  Empire. 
The  aspiration  after  personal  salvation 
may  take  forms  to  which  the  epithets 
** selfish  and  immoral"  are  but  too  justly 
applied.  The  period  of  the  Decline  and 
Fall  had  superabundant  experience  of 
that  unsocial  tendency. 

Turn  for  a  moment  to  the  history  of 
imperial  persecution.  Why  should  the 
age  of  the  Antonines,  that  century  of 
unparalleled  good  government,  under  a 

[14] 


Evolution  of  Religion 

succession  of  world-rulers  of  the  noblest 
type,  beginning  with  Trajan  the  hero, 
and  ending  with  Marcus  Aurelius,  phi- 
losopher, emperor,  and  saint,  have  been 
a  century  of  war  to  the  knife  against 
our  nascent  faith?  Rome  broke  all  her 
age-long  precedents  of  toleration  to  visit 
this  single  Oriental  religion  with  bitter 
persecution.  It  maintained  the  hostility 
two  hundred  and  fifty  years.  Why  was 
this?  What  made  Christianity  so  dif- 
ferent from  the  other  Oriental  religions 
of  personal  redemption! 

A  modern  instance  will  help  us  to 
understand  the  irrepressible  conflict. 
Look  across  the  Pacific  at  what  the  na- 
tional religion  of  Shinto  has  done  for 
Japanese  loyalty  within  the  last  ten 
years.  One  may  realize  from  it  what  a 
flourishing  national  religion  might  have 
done  for  classic  civilization  and  the 
world-empire  of  the  Caesars.  It  has 
secured  for  Japan  what  Roman  emper- 
ors endeavored  to  secure  and  failed. 
The  worship  of  the  *  genius'  of  the 
emperor,  demanded  by  Rome  in  the 
second  century  as  the  test  of  fealty  to 

[15] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

the  ideals  of  the  world-commonwealth, 
was  refused  by  the  Christian  as  an  act 
of  disloyalty  to  the  King  invisible.  He 
'^feared  not  their  fear,  but  sanctified  in 
his  heart  Christ  as  Lord.''  But  to  men 
like  Hadrian  and  Marcus  Aurelius, 
emperor-worship  was  far  more  than  a 
tribute  to  their  personal  vanity.  It  was 
not  a  mark  of  servile  adulation,  but  a 
vow  of  fealty  to  the  imperial  ideal.  Men 
who  refused  it  would  be  guilty  in  the 
eyes  even  of  a  Tacitus  of  *  *  hatred  of  the 
human  race''  {odium  humani  generis). 
If,  then,  Christianity  was  singled  out  for 
persecution  alone  among  the  many  Ori- 
ental religions  of  personal  redemption, 
this  was  not  because  of  their  common 
trait  of  ^^indifference  to  the  public  wel- 
fare," although  this  alleged  common 
trait  of  unsocial  interest  made  all  alike 
** contemptible"  in  the  eyes  of  the  true 
Eoman  imperialist.  It  was  because  of 
something  distinctive  and  exceptional. 
For  Christianity,  however  in  the  Grreek- 
speaking  world  it  might  be  clothed  with 
the  ritual  forms  and  sacramental  ideas 
of  the  Hellenistic  religions  of  individual 

[16] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

redemption,  however  it  might  seem  piv- 
oted, like  the  mystery  religions,  on  the 
hope  of  personal  immortality,  was  in  its 
origin  and  fundamentally,  as  I  have 
said,  an  offshoot  of  the  most  intensely 
nationalistic  of  all  tribal  and  national 
religions.  Judaism,  the  only  national 
religion  which  survived  the  destruction 
of  the  ancient  world-order  in  the  con- 
quests of  Alexander  and  Eome, — Juda- 
ism has  actually  outlived  down  to  our 
own  time  the  national  religion  of  the 
Eoman  Empire  itself.  And  Judaism  is 
nationalistic  to  the  core.  Before  it  took 
over  from  Persian  and  Hellenistic 
thought  the  doctrines  of  individual  im- 
mortality and  the  world  to  come,  it  made 
national  well-being  its  exclusive  ideal. 
More  than  a  century  ago  this  phenome- 
non caught  the  attention  of  Warbur- 
ton  and  drew  from  him  the  paradoxical 
argument  of  The  Divine  Legation  of 
Moses,  The  Egyptian  is  the  Jew's 
nearest  neighbor.  And  the  hope  of  life 
after  death  is  the  very  essence  of  the 
religion  of  Egypt.  The  religions  of  Per- 
sia, Babylonia,  Syria,  were  filled  with  it. 

[17] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

But  the  prophets  of  Israel  not  only 
ignored  it ;  they  placed  it  under  the  ban. 
To  them  it  savored  of  nature-worship. 
The  weeping  for  Adonis,  the  nature-god 
who  dies  and  rises  again,  by  union  with 
whom  the  human  spirit  attains  immor- 
tality, was  as  great  an  abomination  to 
Ezekiel  as  Christianity  to  Tacitus. 
Later,  it  is  true,  under  Persian  and 
Greek  influence,  after  the  national  life 
had  become  a  second  time  extinct, 
Israel's  doctrine  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
became  rapidly  universalized,  and  more 
and  more  transcendental.  The  kingdom 
of  God  ceased  to  belong  to  the  things  of 
this  world,  and  was  relegated  to  another, 
an  ideal  *  *  world  to  come. ' '  Christianity 
in  breaking  down  the  last  barrier  be- 
tween Jew  and  Gentile,  in  making  hu- 
manity the  heir  of  the  Abrahamic  inher- 
itance, and  at  the  same  time  making  that 
inheritance  transcendental,  was  simply 
following  the  lines  of  manifest  destiny. 
Judaism  itself  had  taken  many  strides 
along  this  road.  But  however  universal- 
ized, the  ideal  of  the  kingdom  of  God 
was  too  deep-rooted  in  the  teachings  of 

[18  1 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

Jewish  prophets  and  the  heroic  suffer- 
ings of  Jewish  martyrs  to  lose  its  iden- 
tity by  mere  fusion  with  the  Grseco- 
Roman  ideal  of  the  Commonwealth  of 
Humanity.  Fusion  there  has  been;  but 
in  the  process  it  has  not  been  the  classic 
ideal  which  absorbed  the  Jewish.  It  has 
been  the  Christianized  Jewish  which 
took  up  and  revitalized  the  classic.  Not 
Rome  but  Jerusalem  has  become  for  us 
the  type  of  the  ' '  Eternal  City. ' '  While 
the  Empire  still  stood  at  only  the  begin- 
ning of  its  decadence,  Augustine  was 
writing  his  City  of  God,  and  Christians 
throughout  the  western  world  were 
sending  forth  their  ^^  Alleluia  Perenne'' : 

Sing  Alleluia  forth  in  duteous  praise, 
Ye^  citizens  of  heaven,  oh,  sweetly  raise 
An  endless  Alleluia. 

Ye  powers  who  stand  before  the  eternal  Light, 
In  hymning  choirs  re-echo  to  the  height 
An  endless  Alleluia. 

The  Holy  City  shall  take  up  your  strain, 
And  with  glad  songs  resounding  wake  again 
An  endless  Alleluia.^ 

1  From  a  Latin  hymn  of  the  fifth  century. 

[19] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Bernard  of  Cluny  in  the  twelfth  century 
still  has  a  social  ideal  which  matches  the 
world-patriotism  of  Virgil  and  Seneca. 
Only  the  ^messianism'  of  Virgil  has 
been  transcendentalized  in  its  turn,  like 
the  *messianism'  of  Isaiah.  To  Bernard 
there  is  still  a 

....  sweet  and  blessed  country 
The  home  of  God's  elect; 

A  sweet  and  blessed  country 
That  eager  hearts  expect. 

But  the  city  of  his  dreams  is  not  a  heav- 
enly Rome.  It  is  a  heavenly  Jerusalem. 
Nevertheless,  if  medieval  Christianity 
thought  of  its  *New  Jerusalem'  only  as 
an  other-worldly,  transcendental  realm, 
which  the  slow  lapse  of  the  ages  has 
lifted  ever  further  into  the  dim  unreali- 
ties of  cloud-land,  modern  Christianity 
has  brought  its  compensations.  For 
modern  Christianity  is  tending  back  with 
tremendous  force  toward  the  ancient 
Hebrew  ideal.  It  retains  the  cosmopoli- 
tanism of  Eome,  but  has  the  concrete 
practicality  of  Jewish  messianism.  The 
New  Jerusalem  of  our  modern  hope  is 

[20] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

the  reconstructed  social  order  of  the 
prophets;  not  an  ethereal  paradise  for 
disembodied  souls,  but  a  city  that  hath 
foundations,  that  comes  down  out  of 
heaven  from  God,  and  is  realized  on 
earth  among  men. 

We  point,  then,  to  the  singling  out  of 
Christianity  for  persecution  among  the 
many  Oriental  religions  of  personal  re- 
demption as  proof  that  the  threat  which 
it  offered  to  the  social  ideal  of  the 
Empire  was  not  merely  negative  like 
theirs,  but  positive  and  aggressive. 
The  starting-point  of  our  religion  was 
the  doctrine  that  Jesus  is  the  Christ, 
And  what  is  a  *  Christ' — a  Messiah — ^if 
not  the  representative  and  leader  of  a 
social  ideal?  Whatever  individualistic 
ideals  may  be  superadded  out  of  the 
profound  and  mystical  doctrines  of  the 
Oriental  religions  of  incarnation,  re- 
demption, resurrection,  whatever  Paul 
did  toward  Hellenizing  the  faith,  Chris- 
tianity remains  from  its  foundation 
ethical  and  social.  This  is  the  key  to 
its  long  and  bloody  warfare  with  the 
Caesars  over  the  title  *Lord,'  allowed  by 

[21] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

it  to  none  but  its  own  Christ.  Imperial 
Rome,  which  had  only  contempt  for 
the  *^ oriental  superstitions''  of  Attis, 
Adonis,  Osiris,  Mithra,  and  the  like,  had 
equal  contempt  for  Christianity.  If 
against  Christianity  alone  it  decreed  a 
war  of  extermination  the  reason  lies 
here:  The  other  redemption  religions 
acquiesced  in  Rome 's  claim  to  universal 
loyalty  in  the  interest  of  the  world's 
welfare.  Christianity  alone  rejected  it. 
For  Christianity  alone  had  a  social 
ideal  for  the  race,  irreconcilable  with 
Rome's.  Domitian  was  the  first  emperor 
to  make  war  with  Christianity  a  clearly 
defined  policy  of  the  Empire.  His 
charge  against  it  was  loyalty  to  a  hos- 
tile political  ideal.  The  brunt  of  the 
attack  was  borne  by  the  little  *  caliphate' 
gathered  around  the  ^kindred  of  Jesus' 
(desposyni)  in  Jerusalem.  It  is  none 
other  than  Domitian  who  first  decreed 
that  imperial  edicts  should  take  the 
form:  **Thus  wills  our  Lord  and  God" 
(Sic  vult  dominus  et  deus  noster). 
Christian  feeling  toward  these  **  names 
of  blasphemy"  and  the  city  ** drunk  with 

[22] 


Evolution  of  Religion 

the  blood  of  the  saints  and  martyrs  of 
Jesus ' '  may  be  learned  from  the  contem- 
porary Book  of  the  Revelation  of  John. 
A  slightly  earlier  writing  bearing  the 
name  of  Peter  encourages  the  Pauline 
Christians  of  Asia  Minor  to  stand  fast 
in  the  *^ fiery  trial/'  meeting  the  emper- 
or's demand  fearlessly,  but  with  the 
quiet  determination  to  ^  ^  sanctify  in  your 
hearts  Christ  as  ^Lord'  "  and  be  loyal 
unto  death  to  the  hope  reserved  in 
heaven  until  his  coming.  The  incom- 
patibility between  Empire  and  Church 
was  real.  God  Himself  had  made  the 
crucified  Friend  of  publicans  and  sin- 
ners ^^both  *Lord'  and  Christ."  Loy- 
alty to  a  divinely  reconstructed  social 
order  was  inborn  in  our  religion.  It 
was  diffused  through  every  fibre  of  the 
Church  by  the  blood-bath  of  the  first 
three  centuries.  It  is  there  to  stay  as 
long  as  Christianity  endures. 

III.  It  is  in  view  of  this  historic 
origin  of  Christianity,  combining  the 
two  great  factors  traceable  in  the  evo- 
lution of  religion,  that  we  must  prepare 

[23] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

to  consider  modem  proposals  for  its 
reconstruction  arising  out  of  changed 
views  of  the  order  of  nature.  We  recog- 
nize reasons  for  change,  but  affirm  the 
improbability  of  any  of  lasting  benefit 
which  disregards  the  vital  facts  in  the 
nature  and  history  of  our  religion,  in 
particular  its  adjustment  to  the  two 
antithetic  poles,  the  individual  and  the 
social  ideal.  Change  is  indispensable  to 
life.  But  degeneration  as  well  as  pro- 
gress is  covered  by  the  term.  We  live 
in  a  time  of  the  reconstruction  of  ideas 
rapid  beyond  precedent,  revolutionary, 
irresistible.  Because  our  religion  is 
living  it  changes  with  our  conceptions  of 
the  universe  and  our  relation  to  it.  If 
it  were  dead  it  might  be  stationary;  not 
otherwise.  What,  then,  shall  guarantee 
us  amid  the  proposed  reconstructions  of 
Christianity  that  we  be  not  led  off  into 
some  by-path,  sacrificing  the  immeasur- 
able values  of  the  historic  faith?  Some, 
indeed,  hold  it  the  policy  of  safety  to 
close  eyes  and  ears  to  all  that  savors  of 
modernity  and  cling  with  dogged  obsti- 
nacy to  whatever  may  be  saved  of  medie- 

[24] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

val  forms.  That,  however,  is  deliber- 
ately to  adopt  a  perpetually  losing 
strategy.  Scholarship  knows  no  guar- 
antee of  conservation  but  the  historical 
method.  To  appreciate  our  religion  in 
its  living,  vital,  essential  factors  we 
must  understand  it  genetically,  that  is, 
in  its  development.  When  we  know  the 
principles  of  its  growth  we  shall  be 
able  to  judge  of  the  proposed  recon- 
structions that  are  commended  to  us, 
whether,  and  to  what  degree,  they  rep- 
resent the  line  of  historic  advance.  It 
is  in  this  interest  of  continuity  that  I 
speak.  As  between  modernist  and  anti- 
modernist  I  have  no  brief  to  plead. 
The  critical  historian  loses  all  authority 
the  moment  he  becomes  a  partisan. 
But  the  historian  of  religion  cannot  be 
a  historian  at  all  without  the  recogni- 
tion of  change — ^yes,  of  evolution;  for 
that  term  is  one  which,  however  exposed 
to  prejudice,  really  stands  for  a  reason- 
able religious  faith.  Not  mere  kalei- 
doscopic *  change,'  but  *  evolution'  is 
the  province  of  history.  And  if  there 
has  been  an  evolution  of  anything,  there 

[25] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

has  been  an  evolution  of  religion.  As 
in  other  fields  so  here,  there  are  periods 
and  phenomena  of  degeneration;  but 
they  are  less  marked  than  those  of  de- 
velopment. The  practical  service  which 
we  ask  of  the  critic  of  Christian  origins 
is  that  he  should  enable  us  to  discrimi- 
nate between  degeneration  and  advance. 
Only  the  most  scientific  methods  of 
critical  research  can  be  trusted  to  guide 
us  here.  We  must  learn  what  has  been 
distinctive  and  vital  in  this  most  aggres- 
sive of  all  aspirants  to  be  the  predis- 
tined  and  final  religion  of  the  world.  Is 
Christianity  essentially  a  socialistic  or 
individualistic  religion?  Or  does  it 
combine  in  indissoluble  union  the  vital 
elements  of  its  Jewish  and  its  Helle- 
nistic ancestry,  the  mysticism  of  the 
redemption  rehgions  with  the  ethics  of 
the  Kingdom  of  God? 

Our  age  has  been  prolific  of  attempts 
to  reconstruct  theology.  And  this  really 
means  the  reconstruction  of  Christian- 
ity; for  theology  is  simply  the  religion 
itself  reduced  to  logical  order;  and  in 
the    long    run    practice    must    follow 

[26] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

theory.  Twenty  years  ago  when  Joseph 
Le  Conte  wrote  his  splendid  vindications 
of  theistic  and  Christian  evolution,  called 
Religion  and  Science  and  Evolution 
and  its  Relation  to  Religious  Thought, 
we  were  still  in  the  throes  of  the  great 
debate  whether  it  was  or  was  not  com- 
patible with  Christianity,  or  even  with 
any  theistic  faith,  to  admit  the  theory 
of  evolution  as  an  explanation  of  the 
physical  creation.  Eecent  as  that  time 
was,  measured  by  mere  years,  we  are 
already  chiefly  puzzled  to  explain  why 
all  enlightened  men  did  not  take  the 
same  views  as  Asa  Gray  and  Joseph  Le 
Conte.  We  find  it  hard  to  understand 
that  any  thoughtful  man  should  have 
failed  to  see  that  evolution  by  the 
progressive  operation  of  inherent  uni- 
formly operative  causes,  is  not  neces- 
sarily mechanical,  materialistic,  or  fatal- 
istic. Evolution  conceived  as  a  mode 
of  immanent  divine  action,  is  now  rec- 
ognized to  be  at  least  as  worthy  of 
an  all-wise,  all-loving  Father  of  our 
spirits,  as  the  medieval  conception  of 
fiat-creation.    But  long  ago  in  Europe, 

[27] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

and  more  recently  in  America  also, 
it  has  come  to  be  recognized  that 
evolution  involves  other  reconstruc- 
tions than  in  the  field  of  the  physi- 
cal creation.  Criticism  investigates 
the  history  and  literature  of  religion, 
and  criticism  confesses  to  the  same 
principle  of  evolution.  That  does  not 
mean  that  biblical  critics  are  atheistic. 
Individual  critics,  like  other  men,  have 
had  their  bias;  and  there  have  been 
periods  when  the  general  bent  was 
materialistic.  Treatises  have  been  writ- 
ten on  the  Evolution  of  Eeligion,  or  the 
Psychology  of  Religious  Experience, 
which  seemed  to  take  it  for  granted  that 
the  truth  or  falsity  of  a  belief  could  be 
determined  by  the  mode  of  its  attain- 
ment. We  have  had  arguments  of  this 
type :  Humanity  has  reached  its  theistic 
world-view  through  the  devious  paths 
of  primitive  folkways  and  nature- 
myths.  Argol,  the  theistic  world-view 
is  a  delusion.  This  is  the  logic  of  the 
country  school-ma'am,  who  gives  the 
child  arithmetician  a  zero  mark  if  the 
answer,  true  or  false,  be  not  obtained 

[28] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

according  to  the  method  set  down  in  the 
book. 

More  often  the  application  of  the  evo- 
lutionary principle  to  the  history  of  reli- 
gion has  been  made  in  devout  conviction 
that  the  development  of  religious  faiths 
and  moral  standards  through  inherent, 
rational  causes  is  but  a  mode  of  divine 
operation  in  the  spiritual  creation,  an 
evolution  of  the  sons  of  God.  And  the 
future  is  with  men  of  this  type  of 
thought.  Outcry  there  is  against  the 
temerity  of  applying  to  the  Scriptures 
the  same  critical  methods  as  to  all  other 
ancient  records  and  literatures.  Criti- 
cal results  will  be  cried  down.  There  is, 
and  will  continue  to  be,  strenuous  resist- 
ance to  applying  the  doctrine  of  evolu- 
tion in  the  spiritual  realm.  But  the  fact 
remains.  Slowly,  surely,  irresistibly, 
criticism,  the  science  of  the  history  of 
thought,  advances,  correcting  its  errors, 
reducing  its  differences,  achieving  its 
scientifically  accepted  results.  There  is 
pathos,  there  is  almost  heroism,  in  the 
frantic  resistance  of  those  who  have 
pinned  their  faith  to  the  old  order,  be- 

[29] 


Chbistianity  Old  and  New 

lieving  that  the  Bible  can  no  longer  teach 
the  true  path  of  duty  and  destiny  unless 
its  history  and  doctrine  be  as  miracu- 
lously free  from  the  human  frailties  of 
other  contemporary  records  and  teach- 
ings as  its  astronomy  and  geology  were 
once  believed  to  be.  The  resistance 
moves  our  sympathy,  but  its  only  effect 
on  the  results  is  to  make  them  more  sure, 
more  carefully  tested,  more  scientific, 
than  before.  And  the  scientific  results 
are  not  open  to  dispute.  Bible  history 
is  not  free  from  legend,  bible  philosophy 
is  not  free  from  myth.  Like  the  natural 
science  of  the  biblical  writers  they  are 
not  born  out  of  due  time.  They  are  the 
history,  the  ethics,  and  the  philosophy  of 
the  particular  writer  ^s  age  and  environ- 
ment, and  must  be  distinguished  from 
our  history,  our  ethics,  and  our  philos- 
ophy. Prophets  and  holy  men  of  old 
spake  as  they  were  moved  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  But  the  teaching  of  God  did  not 
overreach  itself.  It  did  not  outrun  the 
times.  The  truth  which  these  men  saw, 
and  which  inspired  them  to  undying 
speech  and  action,  was  seen  under  the 

[301 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

thought-forms  of  their  own  age,  ex- 
pressed in  the  language  of  their  own 
people.  God's  word  was  line  upon  line, 
precept  upon  precept.  If  we  would  have 
critical  history  from  bible  narrative,  we 
must  apply  to  it  the  same  critical  pro- 
cesses we  apply  to  other  records  of  the 
time.  If  we  would  have  a  philosophical 
construction  of  the  events,  we  must  put 
our  own  interpretation  upon  them  and 
not  simply  borrow  that  of  the  narrators. 
We  must  use  the  thought-forms  of  our 
time,  as  they  used  the  thought-forms  of 
theirs. 

Most  futile  of  all  is  the  attempt  to 
draw  arbitrary  lines  across  the  page  and 
say:  Myth  and  legend  may  be  admitted 
to  exist  in  Genesis,  but  not  in  Exodus; 
the  miracles  of  Samson  may  be  legend- 
ary, but  those  of  Elisha  are  fact.  If  we 
apply  the  standard  critical  tests  in 
Judges,  we  must  apply  them  in  Second 
Kings;  if  we  apply  them  in  the  Old 
Testament,  we  must  apply  them  in  the 
New.  We  cannot  yield  up  the  vision  of 
Elisha 's  servant  to  the  tender  mercies 
of  the  literary  critic,  and  withhold  that 

[311 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

of  the  Transfiguration.  We  cannot  say 
the  visible  ascension  of  Elijah  to  heaven 
may  have  been  fabulous,  and  exempt 
from  critical  tests  Luke's  story  of  the 
visible  ascension  of  Jesus.  Shall  we,  or 
shall  we  not,  admit  scientific  enquiry! 
The  way  of  the  Vatican  and  the  way  of 
the  modernist  are  before  us ;  the  author- 
ity of  dogma,  or  the  authority  of  evi- 
dence. But  if  we  choose  the  latter  we 
cannot  stop  halfway.  We  must  be  pre- 
pared to  find  many  a  narrative  dis- 
credited, many  a  doctrine  traced  to 
misconception. 

Eemember,  we  are  to  be  led  by  no 
prejudice  either  for  or  against  what  has 
been  believed.  Every  consideration  that 
has  truth  must  receive  acknowledgment 
to  exactly  that  extent;  but  other  con- 
siderations simply  have  no  weight. 
There  is  indeed  a  relative  freedom  from 
contemporary  error  and  superstition 
that  comes  to  souls  consecrated  to  a 
lofty  purpose,  inspired  by  a  vision  of  the 
divine  ideal.  Men  like  Jesus  and  Paul 
rise  superior  to  current  superstitions  of 
their  time.    To  that  extent  religious  in- 

[32] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

spiration  indirectly  improves  scientific 
perception.  Jesus  contemns  the  prog- 
nosticators  and  bids  men  read  rather 
the  **  signs  of  the  times. '^  He  stigma- 
tizes as  **evil  and  adulterous"  the  mor- 
bid craving  for  miracle,  and  handles  the 
law  and  the  prophets  with  a  spiritual 
insight  into  their  eternal  values  that  puts 
to  shame  the  servile,  scholastic  pettifog- 
ging of  the  rabbis.  To  that  extent  he  is 
scientifically  in  advance  of  his  age. 
Paul  also  seems  almost  to  anticipate 
modern  criticism.  He  has  a  sense  of  ethi- 
cal values  which  teaches  him  that  the 
spectacular  endowments  of  the  Spirit  by 
which  the  Corinthian  believers  set  such 
store,  ** miracles,"  ^ tongues,"  ^^proph- 
ecies," were  ephemeral  and  worthless 
as  compared  with  the  abiding  graces  of 
the  soul,  faith,  hope,  love.  This  superi- 
ority of  Jesus  and  Paul  to  their  times  is 
marvelous.  But  it  is  not  magical.  It  is 
a  religious,  not  primarily  a  scientific, 
superiority.  Jesus  has  no  magical  /ore- 
sight  of  God's  purposes.  He  has  msight 
into  God 's  nature.  The  people  ask  him, 
**When  will  the  kingdom  come?"  and 

[33] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

he  tells  them  frankly  he  does  not  know. 
They  ask  him,  *'What  is  it!''  and  he 
tells  them  from  his  inward  experience: 
'*It  is  being  sons  and  daughters  of  the 
Highest.''  So  far  as  strictly  scientific 
knowledge  is  concerned  Jesus  and  Paul 
stand  on  a  level  with  their  contempor- 
aries. It  is  so  regarding  the  creation 
and  its  expected  end.  It  is  so  regarding 
demons  and  their  supposed  relation  to 
calamity  and  disease.  The  superiority  of 
Jesus  and  Paul  is  religious.  Demons 
there  may  be,  **gods  many  and  lords 
many."  This  is  their  belief  as  well  as 
that  of  their  contemporaries.  Yet  they 
are  free  from  contemporary  supersti- 
tion. For,  as  Paul  continues,  'Ho  us 
there  is  one  God  the  Father,  of  whom  are 
all  things,  and  one  Lord  Jesus  Christ 
through  whom  are  all  things."  We  sink 
back  into  the  very  bondage  of  the  letter 
from  which  Jesus  and  Paul  would  set 
us  free,  if  we  make  of  their  utterances 
an  external  standard,  instead  of  a  guide 
and  incentive  to  draw  for  ourselves  from 
the  eternal  springs  of  life  and  truth. 
**Who  is  Paul,  or  ApoUos,  or  Cephas," 

[341 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

says  the  Apostle,  ^*but  ministers 
through  whom  ye  believe  T'  **He  that 
believeth  in  me, ' '  says  Jesus,  *  *  believeth 
not  in  me,  but  in  Him  that  sent  me.  ^ ' 

This,  then,  is  one  of  the  vast,  slow 
changes  that  have  overtaken  all  our 
views  of  the  world  since  we  began  to 
think  in  terms  of  evolution.  We  have 
begun  to  look  through  the  biblical  writ- 
ings at  the  spiritual  life  which  lies  be- 
hind them,  and  of  which  they  were  the 
product  and  flower.  We  have  begun  to 
appreciate  how  vital  a  distinction  that 
is  which  our  fourth  evangelist  puts  in 
the  mouth  of  Jesus  in  rebuking  the  arro- 
gance of  the  scribes:  **Ye  search  the 
Scriptures  because  ye  think  that  in  them 
ye  have  eternal  life;  and  they  are  they 
that  testify  of  me,  and  ye  would  not 
come  unto  me  that  ye  might  have  life." 
It  is  largely  due  to  the  application  of 
the  evolutionary  principle  in  the  domain 
of  spiritual  life  that  we  have  begun  to 
understand  what  the  fourth  evangelist 
means  by  the  eternal  Word,  the  Logos. 
We  have  become  students  of  the  history, 
psychology,  and  philosophy  of  religion, 

[35] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

using  its  literature  for  the  *  testimony" 
it  bears  to  the  Spirit  of  God  in  man, 
working  with  God  through  all  the  dark 
generations  of  the  past,  brooding  over 
His  spiritual  creation  yet  to  be.  We 
have  begun  to  see  the  glory  of  the  living, 
eternal  Word,  ^*the  Life  that  was  mani- 
fested, '  *  the  Life  of  God,  in  man. 

And  from  this  new  treatment  of  Scrip- 
ture, objective,  historical,  scientific,  crit- 
ical, but  passionate  in  its  love  for  the 
truth  and  devotion  to  it,  has  grown  the 
deep  sense  of  need  for  restatement  of 
our  Christian  faith.  On  the  one  side  is 
medievalism,  strengthening  itself  for 
dogged  resistance ;  on  the  other  modern- 
ism eager  for  paths  untried.  Louder 
and  louder  sounds  the  cry  for  theo- 
logical reconstruction.  And  the  cry 
meets  its  response.  There  are  proposed 
reconstructions  of  Christianity  which 
,  follow  the  ethical  type,  and  other  pro- 
i  posed  reconstructions  which  follow  the 
individualistic  and  mystical.  But  here 
is  a  significant  fact.  Of  all  the  proposed 
reconstructions  of  our  faith  none  hopes 
for  the  assent  of  the  thinking  world  that 

[36] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

is  not  regarded,  at  least  by  its  own  advo- 
cates, as  historical.  Each  aspires  to  be 
in  some  sense  a  restoration  of  the  in- 
spired past.  Both  alternatives  of  pro- 
posed reconstruction,  the  ethical  and 
the  mystical,  profess  to  rest  on  history. 
History,  then,  must  be  their  judge. 

IV.  The  fourth  and  final  proposition 
for  our  consideration  today  may  be 
briefly  stated.  It  is  a  defense  of  the 
jurisdiction  of  the  court.  The  alterna- 
tive types  of  reconstructed  Christianity 
which  appeal  to  the  acceptance  of 
thoughtful  men  today  are  the  Ethical 
and  the  Mystical.  Both  appeal  to  his- 
tory and  must  be  judged  by  it.  In  select- 
ing concrete  instances  we  must  mention 
specific  names;  but  they  are  used  as 
illustrative,  and  will  be  recognized  as 
typical. 

One  of  the  weightiest  utterances  of 
the  retiring  president  of  our  greatest 
American  university  was  published 
not  very  long  ago  (October,  1909)  in 
The  Harvard  Theological  Review,  under 
the  title,  ''The  Eeligion  of  the  Future.'' 

[37] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

President  Eliot's  reconstruction  pre- 
sents the  distinctive  type  of  what  has 
claimed  for  itself,  and  has  sometimes 
been  accorded,  the  honorable  name  of 
*  Liberal'  Christianity.  To  him  the 
mystical  doctrines  of  personal  religion, 
the  doctrines  of  incarnation,  atonement, 
immortality,  represent  mainly  ** pagan" 
accretion.  To  restore  to  Christianity 
its  true  message  for  our  times  we  must 
trace  it  back  (thinks  President  Eliot) 
to  its  *^ Hebrew  purity"  in  the  ethical 
teachings  of  Jesus.  As  for  what  are 
termed  *the  consolations  of  religion' 
they  will  be  mainly  found  in 

....  a  universal  goodwill,  under  the  influ- 
ence of  which  men  will  do  their  duty,  and  at 
the  same  time  promote  their  own  happiness. 
The  devotees  of  a  religion  of  service  will 
always  be  asking  what  they  can  contribute  to 

the  common  good The  work  of  the 

world  must  be  done,  and  the  great  question  is, 
shall  it  be  done  happily  or  unhappily  ?  Much 
of  it  is  today  done  unhappily.  The  new  reli- 
gion will  contribute  powerfully  toward  the 
reduction  of  this  mass  of  unnecessary  misery, 
and  will  do  so  chiefly  by  promoting  goodwill 
among  men. 

[38] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

Of  the  nobility  of  this  ethical  ideal 
there  can  be  no  question.  It  certainly 
has  justification  in  history,  as  we  have 
seen  at  least  in  a  part  of  the  history. 
It  may  rightly  claim  to  reflect  in  large 
degree  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  while  it 
goes  almost  more  than  half  way  to  meet 
the  Reformed  Synagogue  and  the  liberal 
Ethical  Society.  But  can  we  with  his- 
toric truth  call  that  Christianity  which 
passes  lightly  over  the  doctrine  of  the 
person  of  Christ,  the  significance  of  his 
life  and  work  regarded  (to  use  HegePs 
phrase)  as  *^a  representation  of  the 
divine  idea''?  Can  that  really  be  Hhe 
gospeP  in  which  there  is  not  one  word 
of  what  Paul  describes  as  ' '  the  ministry 
of  reconciliation  committed  unto  us''  as 
ambassadors  for  God,  **how  that  in 
Christ  God  was  reconciling  the  world 
unto  himself,  not  imputing  unto  men 
their  trespasses"? 

No ;  President  Eliot 's  Religion  of  the 
Future  is  good  as  far  as  it  goes,  but  it 
does  not  touch  bottom.  By  strange  coin- 
cidence a  protest  almost  violent  in  char- 
acter is  raised  simultaneously  against 

[39] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

the  proposed  new  type  of  Christianity. 
From  Germany  and  Scotland  comes  the 
positive  assurance  that  the  *  liberal'  re- 
construction has  already  been  tried  and 
found  wanting.  Under  date  but  three 
months  later  than  President  Eliot's 
article,  Doctor  K.  C.  Anderson  presents 
in  the  Hihhert  Journal  (January,  1910) 
the  indictment  against  it  of  a  new  and 
clamorous  school,  the  Idealistic  Monists 
of  Germany.  The  Monists  cry  out 
against  the  hypocrisy  of  the  **  Jesus- 
worshippers ' '  as  they  term  them,  those 
who  have  stripped  the  gospel  story  of 
its  supernaturalism,  and  yet  make  God 
in  Christ  the  object  of  religious  devo- 
tion. Dr.  Anderson  entitles  his  article, 
*  *  The  Collapse  of  Liberal  Christianity, ' ' 
and  in  that  of  a  year  later  (January, 
1911)  called,  ** Whitherward?  A  Ques- 
tion for  the  Higher  Criticism,''  he 
argues — I  quote  the  language  of  the 
editor's  summary — *Hhat  the  Higher 
Criticism  has  proved  entirely  destruc- 
tive of  the  historical  basis  of  the  Gos- 
pels; but  this  result,  though  fatal  to 
Liberal  Christianity,  only  serves  to  free 

[40] 


Evolution  of  Eeligion 

the  religion  of  Christ  (i.e.,  abstract 
Christhood)  for  a  deeper  and  fuller 
spiritual  expression  than  it  has  received 
heretofore. ' ' 

President  Eliot  and  Doctor  Anderson 
represent  typically  extreme  views  of 
what  the  Christianity  of  the  future  is  to 
be.  But  both  appeal  to  the  same  data, 
the  results  of  historical  criticism.  Nei- 
ther view  would  be  of  itself  alone  a  mat- 
ter of  vital  importance,  but  as  symptoms 
of  the  great  change  that  is  taking  place 
in  our  religion,  confronted  as  it  has 
come  to  be  with  the  philosophy  of  evo- 
lution, they  are  vitally  significant.  They 
prove  that  our  religion  is  preparing  for 
a  new  and  great  readjustment,  as  when 
in  medieval  times  it  adapted  itself  to 
the  philosophy  of  Aristotle.  The  vital 
power  is  present.  Is  there  virtue  and 
wisdom  sufficient  in  the  historico-critical 
study  which  the  century  just  past  has 
lavished  upon  Christian  origins,  to 
judge  between  these  proposed  recon- 
structions and  determine  the  true  line 
of  historic  advance?  Shall  we  have  a 
reconstruction  that  will   stay,  because 

[41] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

made  in  the  historic  line  of  growth? 
That  is  the  question  to  which  I  shall 
apply  myself  in  the  two  succeeding 
lectures. 


[42 


n 

NINETEENTH    CENTURY    LIBER- 
ALISM 

In  the  preceding  Lecture  two  types  of 
modern  Christian  thought  were  briefly 
referred  to.  According  to  the  views  of 
the  Idealistic  Monists,  the  results  of 
criticism  applied  to  the  records  of  the 
Christian  faith  have  been  entirely  de- 
structive. Nothing  whatever  has  sur- 
vived but  myth.  This,  however,  is  de- 
clared to  be  well;  because  religion  will 
be  freer  when  it  concerns  itself  only 
with  ideas,  regardless  of  the  course  of  ' 
history.  The  individual  soul  will  stand 
face  to  face  with  the  Eternal  that  speaks 
to  its  own  consciousness.  Concrete  real- 
ity is  at  best  the  conditioning  back- 
ground of  our  development,  it  may  be 
an  impediment.  Let  us  seek  with  the 
mystics  to  perfect  the  individual  soul. 
Let  us  with  Nietzsche  deify  this  individ- 
ual personality  that  buds  at  last  upon 

[43  1 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

the  stem  of  biologic  evolution.  Leave 
to  humanitarians  the  improvement  of 
social  conditions. 

According  to  President  Eliot,  on  the 
contrary,  historical  criticism  has  de- 
stroyed nothing  but  worthless  myth  and 
legend.  It  has  done  us  the  incalculable 
service  of  restoring  the  concrete  historic 
fact.  A  mist  of  dogma  was  at  first 
thrown  off  by  speculative  minds  such  as 
Paul's.  Later,  mounting  and  expand- 
ing it  enveloped  and  almost  hid  from 
sight  the  unadorned  form,  the  plain  and 
sublimely  simple  precepts,  of  the  me- 
chanic Teacher  of  Nazareth.  This  trans- 
figuring cloud  criticism  has  at  last  dis- 
pelled. Christianity  is  restored  to  its 
** Hebrew  purity.''  Little  remains,  the 
author  admits,  of  the  so-called  ^consola- 
tions of  religion.'  The  Religion  of  the 
Future  must  abandon  the  attempt  to 
adjust  individual  interests  and  destinies 
to  the  movement  of  the  cosmic  Soul. 
Ethics  will  replace  mysticism.  The  out- 
come will  still  be  *  Christianity, '  because 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  will  form  its 
nucleus.     His  example  will  remain  the 

[44] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

best,  his  leadership  will  evoke  the  high- 
est, most  enduring  loyalty.  The  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  and  the  Lord's 
Prayer  will  remain  the  classic  monu- 
ments of  noble  and  humane  aspiration, 
and  the  Teacher  whose  principles  these 
embody  will  remain  humanity's  social 
Messiah,  an  example  of  the  *  Christ  that 
is  to  be. '  Here  is  an  ideal  of  individual 
duty  and  of  (racial)  destiny.  If  reli- 
gion consists  of  morality  lit  up  by  emo- 
tion, we  have  here  the  emotion  also,  the 
sentiment  of  pathos  and  loyal  devotion 
to  an  ideal.  Is  it  not  ungrateful,  is  it 
not  selfish,  to  ask  more?  Take  this  as 
historical  Christianity — ^the  religion  of 
Jesus — ^brought  down  to  date,  and  what 
more  can  we  reasonably  ask? 

First  of  all,  it  is  true  that  recent  re- 
search has  done  much  to  dispel  the  nim- 
bus from  the  central  figure  of  the  Gos- 
pels. Criticism  has  largely  restored  the 
portrait  of  the  Historic  Jesus.  Perhaps 
I  may  claim  the  right  to  speak  as  a  rep- 
resentative of  New  Testament  criticism. 
If  so,  my  first  assertion — and  a  very 
emphatic  one — ^would  be  that  President 

[45] 


Chbistianity  Old  and  New 

Eliot's  statement  of  its  results  is  much 
nearer  the  truth  than  that  of  the  Ideal- 
istic Monists.  Criticism  has  given  not 
less,  but  more  of  tangible,  vivid  reality 
to  the  portrait  of  Jesus.  The  historical 
figure  of  Jesus,  the  prophet  of  Nazareth, 
stands  out  with  far  greater  clearness 
than  before  in  everything  that  makes 
for  concrete  reality.  As  for  the  golden 
background  of  dogma,  Pauline  and  later, 
against  which  the  historical  figure  has 
been  seen  projected  by  those  who  trans- 
mit to  us  the  portrait,  that  also  is  the 
affair  of  criticism.  It  represents  the 
apostolic  gospel  about  Jesus,  the  Pe- 
trine  and  Pauline  interpretation  of  the 
significance  of  his  person,  his  expe- 
rience, his  fate.  Is  the  New  Testament 
critic  a  judge  of  these  things?  Perhaps 
not,  if  we  accept  the  definition  of  the 
representative  of  Nineteenth  Century 
Liberalism.  His  idea  would  seem  to  be 
that  the  critic  when  he  has  arrived  at 
the  gospel  about  Christ  has  no  use  for 
it  but  to  cast  it  as  rubbish  to  the  void. 
But  we  have  ourselves  defined  the  critic 
to  be  a  ** historian  of  ideas.''    When  he 

[46] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

discriminates  concrete  fact  and  event 
from  the  contemporary  interpretation 
wMch  they  received,  it  is  the  thought 
rather  than  the  thing  which  concerns 
him.  True,  he  must  know  the  thing,  else 
he  cannot  adequately  appreciate  the 
thought.  Therefore  he  is  in  the  first 
instance  a  historical  critic.  But  in  the 
present  field  it  is  not  political  science,  or 
strategics,  nor  even  the  progress  of  art 
and  literature  which  count.  We  are 
dealing  with  the  history  of  religion.  In 
this  field,  it  is  true,  historical  facts  are 
not  unimportant,  because  when  properly 
sifted  they  fall  to  be  classified  and  inter- 
preted in  accordance  with  modern  expe- 
rience by  modern  standards.  But  con- 
temporary judgments  of  the  significance 
of  facts,  inferences,  convictions,  faiths, 
doctrines,  are  more  important;  because 
what  we  aim  to  discover  is  the  progress 
of  man's  inward  experience,  his  reli- 
gious instinct.  If,  then.  Nineteenth  Cen- 
tury Liberalism,  as  we  find  it  repre- 
sented in  President  Eliot's  article, 
seems  to  regard  it  as  the  function  of 
New    Testament    criticism    merely    to 

[47] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

eliminate  and  discard  the  gospel  about 
Jesus,  that  we  must  pronounce  to  be  a 
misconception.  What  the  critic  really 
does  with  this  inward  reflection  of  his- 
tory (if  I  may  so  call  it)  we  shall  see 
later.  It  must  be  considered  in  our  third 
Lecture  entitled,  *^  Twentieth  Century 
Mythical  Idealism,*'  when  we  examine 
the  Idealistic  Monist  *s  conception  of  the 
results  of  criticism  and  the  kind  of  re- 
construction of  Christianity  he  would 
base  upon  them.  Let  us  turn  first  to  his 
judgment  of  fact. 

Before  taking  up  consideration  of 
Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism,  permit 
me  to  offer  a  preliminary  caution.  We 
have  two  kinds  of  respect  to  maintain: 
We  are  to  maintain,  first,  respect  for  the 
ripe  thought  of  one  of  the  representa- 
tive scholars  of  our  age,  a  fearless, 
broad-minded  leader  of  thought.  If  the 
school  represented  by  President  Eliot  is 
small,  let  us  remember  what  manner  of 
men  they  are,  and  that  judgments  in  the 
realm  of  truth  do  not  go  by  count  of 
heads.  We  are  to  maintain,  second, 
respect  for  the  tribunal  we  occupy.    For 

[48] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

the  time  being,  at  least,  we  are  judge  and 
jury  in  the  court  of  the  History  and 
Philosophy  of  Eeligion.  To  judge  of 
criticism  we  must  become  critics — the 
best  critics  we  can.  If  we  reason  at  all 
about  better  or  worse,  truer  or  more 
erroneous,  forms  of  religion,  we  are 
compelled  to  resort  to  this  court ;  for  no 
other  common  standard  exists.  We  oc- 
cupy today  the  seats  of  men  committed 
to  the  belief  that  spiritual,  as  well  as 
physical  life,  advances  under  a  law  of 
evolution.  Christianity,  if  it  really  rep- 
resents the  central  stem  of  growth  in  the 
branching  tree  of  the  religious  instinct 
of  humanity,  must  be  expected  to  re- 
spond to  the  changed  world-views  of  the 
twentieth  century,  as  in  former  times  it 
adjusted  itself,  without  alteration  of  its 
distinctive  character,  to  Aristotelian  and 
Copernican  conceptions.  Is  President 
Eliot's  forecast  adequate?  We  are  to 
answer  this  question  from  the  view- 
point of  the  historian  of  religion  (the 
speaker  aiming  simply  to  give  you 
access  to  it)  and  we  are  to  remember 
that  there  is  another  claimant  in  the 

[49] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

field,  of  precisely  the  opposite  way  of 
thinking.  Perhaps  there  is  no  justice  in 
the  claim  of  either  to  stand  in  the  line 
of  historic  development.  Perhaps  there 
is  something  in  the  claim  of  one,  or  both. 
In  any  event  there  is  an  obligation  of 
respect  besides  that  we  shall  endeavor 
to  show  towards  the  claimants.  It  is 
respect  for  ourselves,  and  for  the  lofty 
tribunal  we  temporarily  ascend. 

I.  It  is  characteristic  of  what  I 
reluctantly  consent  to  call  the  *  Liberal' 
Christianity  of  the  Nineteenth  Century 
(for  I  do  not  think  it  really  deserves  the 
name)  to  seek  religious  adjustment  to 
the  evolutionary  world-view  by  histor- 
ico-critical  analysis  of  the  primitive 
sources.  So  far,  so  good.  But  it  also 
seems  to  regard  the  process  of  criticism 
as  aiming  at  and  accomplishing  a  kind 
of  separation  of  the  sheep  from  the 
goats,  metal  from  dross,  after  this  fash- 
ion :  This,  the  historical,  I  keep ;  this,  the 
legendary,  mythological,  imaginative,  or 
doctrinal  is  worthless,  and  I  throw  it 
away.    You  will  find  this  same  attitude 

[50] 


Nineteenth  Centuky  Libekalism 

of  mind  assumed  by  much  less  thought- 
ful people  toward  the  work  of  biblical 
critics  in  certain  current  expressions 
which  suggest  that  the  higher  critics 
*cut  out'  this  or  that  from  the  Bible, 
'reject'  this  or  that,  retaining  the  re- 
mainder. The  biblical  critic  is  supposed 
to  have  but  one  standard  of  value — 
historicity. 

Now  it  is  true  that  the  first  inferences 
the  critic  draws  from  the  classification 
of  his  material  aim  to  determine  an 
orderly  chronological  account  of  the 
course  of  external  events.  This  is  the 
only  reasonable  mode  of  procedure  if  he 
would  trace  the  deeper,  more  elusive 
processes  of  spiritual  development.  It 
does  not  follow  that  the  critic  *  throws 
Bway'  that  portion  of  his  material  which 
reflects  something  other  than  visible, 
tangible  matter  of  fact.  Indeed,  if  he 
did  he  would  be  like  a  silver  miner  who 
after  separating  the  lead  from  his  mixed 
ore  threw  away  the  more  valuable  metal. 
From  what  was  said  a  few  moments  ago 
you  will  perceive  how  slight  foundation 
there  is  for  the  talk  about  critics  *cut- 

[51] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

ting  out '  parts  of  the  Bible.  Critics  are 
not  more  disposed  than  other  men  to  saw 
off  the  branch  they  sit  on.  Neither  do 
they  undertake  a  task  that  is  apt  to 
bring  them  anything  rather  than  thanks 
because  of  their  exceptional  love  for  the 
concrete  facts  of  Hebrew  history.  Apart 
from  the  development  of  religion,  what 
care  we  for  the  struggle  of  Moses 
against  Pharaoh,  David  against  the 
Philistines,  or  even  of  Paul  against  the 
Judaizers?  To  many  a  critic  the  battles 
of  rooks  and  daws  would  be  as  interest- 
ing. Critics  engage  in  their  laborious 
analyses,  putting  on  one  side  historical 
events — call  that  the  lead — ^putting  on 
the  other  contemporary  reactions  of  the 
religious  mind  upon  the  events  in  the 
form  of  doctrine,  myth,  philosophy — 
call  that  the  silver — not  for  love  of  the 
base  metal,  but  for  the  silver.  Religious 
thought,  like  all  other  thought,  depends 
upon  experience.  But  the  biblical  critic 
does  not  stop  with  the  attempt  to  define 
the  experience.  He  advances  from  it 
to  the  interpretation  devout  men  put 
upon  it.  His  quest  is  that  which  the 
[52] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

scientific  mind  designates  Hhe  evolution 
of  religion'  and  the  religious  mind 
*  God's  progressive  self -manifestation  in 
the  human  soul.'  The  fourth  evangelist 
has  a  technical  term  for  this  spiritual 
core  of  history.  He  designates  it  ^^that 
which  was  from  the  beginning,  the  Word 
of  life;  for  the  life  was  manifested, 
....  even  the  eternal  life  which  was 
with  the  Father  and  hath  been  mani- 
fested unto  us." 

It  seems,  however,  to  be  the  ideal  of 
the  *  liberal'  to  reconstruct  Christianity 
by  restoring  what  he  understands  to  be 
**the  religion  of  Jesus";  and  he  extols 
the  work  of  the  New  Testament  critic  as 
having  made  this  achievement  practi- 
cable by  eliminating  what  he  calls  the 
^* pagan  intrusions."  The  formula  for 
this  type  of  reconstruction  would  run 
somewhat  as  follows:  From  contents  of 
New  Testament  subtract  and  discard  the 
gospel  about  Jesus,  an  element  of  legend 
and  myth  derived  from  the  dogmatic 
period  inaugurated  by  the  apotheosis  of 
Jesus  after  his  death.  The  remainder 
will  be  the  gospel  of  Jesus,  an  admirably 

[53] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

simple  summary  of  human  duty.  We 
shall  have  '*  morality  lit  up  with  emo- 
tion," which  has  been  offered  as  a  defi- 
nition of  religion.  The  morality  will  be 
the  law  of  love.  The  emotion  will  be  of 
two  kinds:  First,  trust  in  a  Heavenly 
Father,  whose  beneficent  purpose  for  the 
world  becomes  ultimately  apparent  in  a 
truly  brotherly  social  order,  the  King- 
dom of  God;  second,  loyalty  to  the  his- 
toric Jesus  as  a  sublimely  consistent  and 
heroic  leader  of  the  world  into  its  ideal 
and  ultimate  social  order. 

Christianity  as  thus  reconstructed  will 
not  entirely  lack  the  element  of  religion 
as  distinguished  from  morality  pure 
and  simple.  It  will  have  in  addition  to 
the  ethics  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
the  ^paternal  theism'  of  the  Lord's 
Prayer.  It  would  not  be  fair  to  refuse 
to  it  the  title  '  Christian. '  For,  however 
little  its  *  Hebrew  purity'  advances  be- 
yond the  Judaism  which  writers  such  as 
Abrahams  and  Montefiore  are  teaching 
us  to  discover  in  the  Talmud,  however 
completely  it  discards  all  speculations 
on  the  person  of  Christ,  and  even  doubts 

[54] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberax,ism 

of  personal  immortality,  still  it  places 
the  historic  Jesus  in  a  position  of  per- 
manent supremacy.  To  him  the  su- 
preme loyalty  of  every  man  will  always 
be  due;  because  the  ideal  of  the  King- 
dom of  God  once  adequately  presented 
as  Jesus  has  presented  it  admits  no 
higher  social  ideal.  And  the  very  re- 
striction of  our  knowledge  of  the  his- 
toric Jesus  to  the  simple  fact  that  he 
lived  and  died  in  absolute  faithfulness 
to  this  ideal  excludes  the  possibility  that 
any  later  claimant  should  usurp  the 
place.  The  greater  the  simplicity,  the 
poverty,  the  outward  limitation  of  his 
lot  in  humble  Galilee,  the  more  perfect 
his  adaptation  to  hold  the  fealty  of  all 
men  in  all  ages  including  the  simplest 
and  lowliest. 

Difficult  as  it  is  to  distinguish  religion 
of  this  type  from  *  reformed'  Judaism, 
the  critically  reconstructed  Christianity 
of  *  liberalism'  is  not  only  theistic,  but 
Christian;  for  it  makes  the  supremacy 
of  Jesus  permanent  and  unique.  It  is 
also  in  a  true  sense  historical;  for  in 
spite  of  the  extravagant  assertions  of 

[  55  ] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

the  Monists  regarding  the  destructive 
effects  of  New  Testament  criticism  (they 
also  begin  by  praising  the  judge:  **0 
righteous  judge!  0  able  judge !^'),  it  is 
a  practicable  thing  to  reproduce  in  out- 
line both  the  religious  teaching,  and  the 
moral  portrait  of  the  historical  Jesus. 
That  is  a  plain,  scientific  fact,  resting  on 
exactly  the  same  kind  of  evidence  we 
would  apply  in  the  case  of  Socrates,  or 
Mohammed,  or  Julius  Caesar. 

II.  There  is,  indeed,  an  obstacle  to 
such  historical  delineation — the  factor 
of  miracle  which  is  prominent  in  the 
record,  and  as  some  think  is  fatal  to  his- 
torical portraiture.  Our  contention  is 
that  this  factor  is  really  subordinate  and 
incidental. 

The  historical  outline  of  Jesus'  teach- 
ing, character,  and  career  down  to  the 
crucifixion  is  as  little  affected  by  the  few 
anecdotes  of  miracle  connected  with  the 
reports,  as  that  of  other  ancient  charac- 
ters by  the  similar  anecdotes  related  of 
them.  In  spite  of  the  agitation  over  the 
question  of  Jesus'  miracles  the  matter 

[56] 


Nineteenth  Centuey  Libebalism 

is  not  really  vital.  It  is  as  indifferent  to 
the  truly  critical  historian  of  religion  as 
Dr.  George  A.  Gordon,  in  his  Taylor 
Lectures  given  at  Yale  in  1909  on  Reli-t 
gion  and  Miracle,  has  shown  that  it  may 
be  for  the  theologian.  The  New  Testa- 
ment critic  finds  the  Apostle  Paul  refer- 
ring in  indubitably  authentic  letters  to 
miraculous  healings  wrought  (to  use  the 
New  Testament  phrase)  **by  the  power 
of  the  Spirit"  through  himself  and 
others.  His  references  show  that  heal- 
ings of  the  type  attributed  to  Jesus  in 
the  Gospels  were  then  not  unusual  occur- 
rences in  the  Church.  Besides  Paul's 
references  we  have  fragments  of  the  con- 
temporary diary  of  one  of  his  travelling 
companions,  fragments  whose  testimony 
hot  the  most  exacting  of  scientific  critics 
will  wholly  set  aside.  These  fragments 
record  not  only  healings,  but  exorcisms, 
visions,  supernatural  deliverances,  and 
even  a  supposed  resuscitation  from 
death.  In  all  of  these  both  Paul  and  the 
diarist  were  personally  participant.  Of 
course  it  is  to  be  admitted  that  if  we 
moderns   had   been   present   we   might 

[57] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

have  put  a  different  interpretation  on 
tlie  phenomena.  We  should  not  have 
recorded  the  exorcism  of  the  pythoness 
at  Philippi  as  the  going  out  of  an  evil 
spirit,  nor  the  restoration  to  conscious- 
ness of  Eutychus  at  Troas  as  a  return 
from  the  dead.  Miracles  are  made  not 
by  the  facts,  but  by  the  interpretation 
put  upon  the  facts.  And  each  age  makes 
its  own  interpretation.  The  same  phe- 
nomena are  to  one  man,  of  one  age, 
miracles ;  to  another  man  of  a  later  age, 
'providential'  occurrences,  or  perhaps 
only  operations  of  *  natural  law'  im- 
perfectly understood.  It  is  not  the 
business  of  the  historical  critic  to  decide 
philosophically  which  point  of  view  is 
more  correct,  but  to  read  records  of  the 
past  with  eyes  trained  to  the  light  of  the 
writer's  period.  From  this  sympathetic 
viewpoint  the  few  anecdotes  of  miracle 
in  the  gospel  record  of  Jesus '  career  and 
teaching  present  scarcely  more  of  diffi- 
culty than  those  of  the  letters  of  Paul, 
accompanied  as  these  are  by  fragments 
of  a  companion's  diary  embedded  in  the 
later  chapters  of  Acts.    We  must  allow, 

[58] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

of  course,  that  gospel  narrative  is  not 
magically  free  from  human  exaggera- 
tion and  growth  of  legend.  That  follows 
from  mere  comparison  of  the  later  with 
the  earlier.  Again  some  parts  of  the 
story  have  better  support  than  others. 
The  healings  and  exorcisms  to  which 
Jesus'  own  sayings  make  incidental  ref- 
erence are  not  to  be  classed  with  tales 
of  prodigy  in  nature,  to  which  his  own 
sayings  give  no  support,  if  indeed  they 
are  not  disclaimed. 

Above  all  else  we  must  exclude  the 
accounts  of  the  resurrection  from  the 
story  of  Jesus'  earthly  career.  The 
resurrection  does  not  belong  among  the 
mighty  works  attributed  to  him.  The 
New  Testament  writers  justly  regard 
the  *  raising  up'  of  Jesus  as  a  work  of 
God  upon  him.  To  Paul,  as  to  his  prede- 
cessors, the  revelation  4n'  them  of 
their  glorified  Lord  was  a  wonderful 
work  of  God  upon  themselves.  He  had 
^^ opened  the  eyes  of  their  hearts"  to 
perceive  the  spiritual  fact.  The  resur- 
rection, then,  so  far  as  we  can  reach  it 
at  all,  is  an  experience  of  Jesus'  follow- 

[59  1 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

ers  after  his  death.  In  the  records  of  it 
which  survive  they  have  expressed  vari- 
ously their  sense  of  a  vital  relation 
established  between  his  living,  glorified 
personality  and  theirs.  Critical  study 
of  the  records  brings  us  thus  ultimately 
to  a  phenomenon  in  the  field  of  the  psy- 
chology of  religion.  Nothing,  indeed,  in 
all  the  history  of  Christianity  is  of  more 
vital  importance  than  this  experience. 
It  deserves  the  study  of  psychologists 
such  as  the  late  William  James.  But  I 
am  speaking  now  of  Jesus'  own  earthly 
life  and  work,  including  the  stories  of 
healings  and  other  wonders,  and  I 
merely  state  the  almost  self-evident 
principle  that  to  the  historical  critic 
accustomed  to  allow  for  distortion  and 
exaggeration  in  the  report,  they  are  no 
more  mysterious  or  unaccountable  than 
the  similar  contemporary  anecdotes 
about  Paul.  And  Paul's  ^miracles'  and 
*  signs  of  an  apostle'  are  sufiiciently 
attested.  They  are,  in  fact,  alluded  to 
by  himself  in  letters  whose  authenticity 
is  beyond  dispute.  In  short,  the  prob- 
lem of  *  miracle'  is  not  a  problem  for 

[60] 


Nineteenth  Centuby  Libebalism 

the  physicist,  nor  for  the  philosopher. 
We  cannot  repeat  the  experiment.  What 
we  have  before  ns  is  the  testimony.  Pri- 
marily, then,  it  is  a  problem  for  the 
literary  critic.  His  work  must  come 
first.  He  must  find  out  what  sort  of 
occurrences  were  designated  *  miracles' 
in  that  age,  and  gave  rise  to  the  reports. 
It  is,  then,  a  perfectly  practicable 
thing  for  New  Testament  criticism  to 
present  in  outline  a  scientifically  trust- 
worthy account  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus, 
and  also  of  his  character  and  public 
career;  an  account  wherein  the  moot- 
point  of  miracle  will  be  purely  incidental 
and  subordinate.  For  this  purpose  we 
have  two  ultimate  sources,  attested  by 
ancient  tradition,  and  reproduced  with 
greater  or  less  success  by  the  approved 
processes  of  modern  analytical  criticism 
applied  to  the  group  of  three  interre- 
lated writings  called  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels.^    Many  New  Testament  scholars 

1  On  the  task  of  New  Testament  criticism  in  the 
characterization  of  the  historical  Jesus  see  the  Essay- 
appended  to  this  series  of  Lectures.  An  accurate 
account  of  critical  results  in  the  analysis  and  valua- 
tion of  gospel  sources  will  be  found  in  James  Mof- 

[61] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

hold  that  the  two  ultimate  sources  on 
which  our  earlier  three  Gospels  were 
primarily  based  were,  first,  a  compila- 
tion of  the  Precepts  of  Jesus,  giving  the 
ethics  of  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  and 
the  worship  of  the  Lord's  Prayer;  sec- 
ond, anecdotes  orally  reported  by  Peter, 
illustrative  both  of  Jesus'  teachings 
and  of  his  character  and  public  career. 
Early  and  undisputed  tradition,  partly 
confirmed  by  the  results  of  modern 
criticism,  tells  us  that  the  book  of  Pre- 
cepts was  compiled  by  the  Apostle  Mat- 
thew about  the  period  of  the  great  Paul- 
ine Epistles  (50-60  A.  D.),  and  was  in 
** Hebrew''  (probably  meaning  Ara- 
maic). This  implies  that  its  circulation 
was  at  first  confined  to  Syria.  Many 
critical  attempts  have  been  made  to  re- 
produce it,  and  are  accessible  in  Hebrew, 
Greek,  German  and  English;^  but  the 
results,  while  mutually  confirmatory,  do 
not  agree  with  the  ancient  tradition.  A 
** second  source"   (designated  Q)  inde- 

fatt's  Introduction  to  New  Testament  Literature; 
Chas.  Seribner's  Sons,  New  York,  1911. 

2  Sixteen   are   reproduced   in    outline   in   Moffatt  's 
Introduction,  pp.  194-206. 

[62] 


Nineteenth  Centxjky  Libekalism 

pendent  of  Mark,  and  probably  older, 
can  be  recovered  from  Matthew  and 
Luke  by  subtracting  the  coincident  mate- 
rial which  they  do  not  derive  from  Mark. 
But  Q  was  not  a  ^* Hebrew^'  document. 
It  was  not  confined  to  *^ precepts,''  and 
it  has  closer  afi&nity  with  Luke  than 
with  *^ Matthew."  The  teaching  of 
Jesus  is  indeed  far  more  prominent  in 
it  than  the  ^* mighty  works,"  and  it  may 
represent  a  stage  between  the  reported 
apostolic  book  of  Precepts  (Logia)  and 
the  narrative  of  Mark,  but  the  work  of 
analysis  is  not  yet  complete. 

The  other  reported  source,  Peter's 
oral  reminiscences,  lies  at  the  founda- 
tion of  our  present  oldest  Gospel,  a  com- 
pilation credibly  attributed  to  Paul's 
follower,  John  Mark.  This  Gospel  was 
written  in  Rome  after  the  death  of  both 
Paul  and  Peter  {ca.  75  A.  D.).  The 
striking  peculiarity  of  this  Gospel  of 
Mark  is  that  it  includes  neither  the 
Sermon  on  the  Mount  nor  the  Lord's 
Prayer,  but  culminates  in  the  story  of 
Calvary.  Manifestly  the  work  was  not 
framed  for  the  purpose  of  giving  the 

[63] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

teaching  of  Jesus,  but  of  proving  the 
apostolic  gospel  about  Jesus.  Its  mes- 
sage was  that  he  was  the  Son  of  God, 
who  redeemed  mankind  through  the 
Cross  and  Eesurrection.  The  anecdotes 
related  by  Mark  are  therefore  largely 
of  the  sort  to  prove  Jesus '  supernatural 
endowment  with  *Hhe  Spirif — that 
effluence  from  God  to  which  we  find  the 
early  Church  attributing  all  its  gifts  of 
'miracles'  or  *  prophecy,'  as  well  as  its 
moral  power  and  its  assurance  of  eter- 
nal life.  The  argument  is  that  Jesus 
from  his  baptism  by  John  had  been  en- 
dowed with  this  'Spirit  of  Adoption'  in 
its  fulness.  He  thereafter  exhibited  in 
his  ministry  in  unlimited  degree  the 
qualities  of  'the  Spirit,'  "the  word  of 
wisdom  and  the  word  of  power."  But 
above  and  beyond  this  in  his  martyrdom 
he  showed  by  word  and  example  as 
Leader  of  human  redemption  what  it  is 
to  be  a  son  of  God  and  an  heir  of  eter- 
nal life.  This,  you  see  at  once,  is  a 
totally  different  kind  of  gospel  from 
any  mere  compilation  of  precepts.  It 
aims  to  make  converts  rather  than  to 

[64] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

build  up  disciples.  Its  reminiscences  of 
Peter  are  used  chiefly  in  the  interest  of 
the  gospel  about  Jesus,  the  Pauline  gos- 
pel of  human  redemption  through  the 
cross  and  resurrection,  a  gospel  which 
we  have  not  yet  taken  into  consideration 
at  all,  and  must  defer  until  the  third 
and  closing  lecture.  Obviously  this  old- 
est of  our  canonical  Gospels  would  serve 
but  ill  the  purposes  of  our  *liberaP  re- 
constructionist.  But  remove  from  this 
Gospel  of  Mark  its  Pauline  (or  quasi- 
Pauline)  redemption  doctrine,  the  evan- 
gelist's effort  to  present  the  Spirit-filled 
Jesus  as  the  world-redeeming  Son  of 
God.  You  will  have  left,  if  your  work 
be  accurately  done,  an  outline  portrait 
of  the  real  Jesus  in  his  distinctive  char- 
acter, life  and  work.  And  there  will  be 
not  a  few  homely  touches  to  corroborate 
the  ancient  tradition  which  declares  it 
to  rest  upon  the  preaching  of  Peter. 

III.  President  Eliot  and  the  *  liber- 
als* are  right  in  saying  that  the  nine- 
teenth century,  the  century  of  historical 
criticism,  has  accomplished  a  great  work 

[65] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

for  the  development  of  our  religion  by 
these  attempts  to  reach  back  through 
the  traditional  testimony  of  Matthew 
and  Peter  toward  a  trustworthy  por- 
trait of  the  historical  Jesus.  The  lines 
are  as  yet  perhaps  but  faint  and  waver- 
ing, but  they  will  grow  firmer  and 
clearer.  It  is  not  the  bodily  but  the 
spiritual  portrait  of  Jesus  that  vitally 
concerns  us ;  and  that  is  already  drawn, 
and  can  never  be  obliterated.  We  al- 
ready know  the  spirit  of  Jesus'  teach- 
ing and  life  better  than  the  spirit  and 
life  of  many  a  great  man  of  modern  his- 
tory; and  we  can  see  that  his  religion 
was  truly  the  consummate  flower  of  all 
ithat  the  nationalistic,  ethical,  or  social 
type  can  offer.  It  is  the  religion  of 
Moses  and  the  prophets  without  its 
racial  limitations.  The  Matthaean  tra- 
dition of  Jesus'  teaching  gives  us,  as  I 
have  said,  the  ethics  of  the  Sermon  on 
the  Mount  and  the  paternal  theism  of 
the  Lord's  Prayer.  The  Petrine  tradi- 
tion of  his  career,  Mark's  anecdotes  of 
his  life  and  character,  give  us  a  Leader 
to  command  the  altruistic  loyalty  of  the 

[66  1 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

human  race,  until  the  goal  is  reached  in 
the  ideal  social  order  of  the  Kingdom  of 
God.  As  the  Fourth  Gospel  expresses 
it:  **He  came  unto  his  own  (domain) 
and  his  own  (people)  received  him  not. 
But  to  as  many  as  received  him — lost 
sons,  outcasts,  sinners — ^he  gave  the 
right  to  be  called  *  sons  of  God. '  ' '  This 
ethical  and  this  social  ideal  are  ulti- 
mate. No  one  will  ever  improve  upon 
the  aspiration:  *^Be  ye  therefore  perfect 
even  as  your  Father;  for  He  is  kind 
even  to  the  unthankful  and  evil.  Be 
imitators  of  Him  and  ye  shall  be  sons 
and  daughters  of  the  Highest.''  There 
is  not,  and  there  jaeyer_canjbe,  a  higher 
conception  than  this  of  duty  and  (racial) 
destiny.  Neither  can. there  ever  be  a 
Leader  besides  this  man  to  whom  all 
humanity  can  look  up  as  Lord  and 
Christ,  without  fear  of  disappointment 
or  humiliation.  The  greatest  hero, 
martyr,  prophet,  were  he  a  very  son  of 
God  in  his  devotion  to  the  will  of  the 
Father  in  heaven,  could  only  be  a  second 
Christ,  a  younger  brother  of  the  Lord. 
The  ideal  is  ultimate,  and  its  representa- 

[67] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

tive  is  unique.    Full  historical  research 
has  established  their  position  forever. 

Moreover,  there  is  something  pecu- 
liarly appealing  to  our  age  in  this  con- 
ception of  Christianity.  We,  today,  are 
in  full  reaction  from  the  mystical  type 
of  religion.  We  are  no  longer  con- 
cerned, as  our  fathers  were,  with  the 
redemption  of  the  individual  soul,  its 
sin  and  weakness,  its  responsibility  to 
God  and  dependence  on  Him,  its  re- 
demption from  sin  and  death,  its  partici- 
pation now  and  hereafter  in  the  eternal 
life  of  God.  We  are  swinging  back 
toward  the  social,  ethical  type.  The  mod- 
ern man  is  more  intent  on  getting  this 
*  world  saved  than  in  getting  saved  out 
of  it  for  a  hypothetical  world  to  come. 
We  modern  democrats  have  no  benevo- 
lent despotism  like  the  Caesars  to  which 
we  can  entrust  the  destinies  of  the  com- 
monwealth in  reasonable  confidence  that 
peace,  order,  justice,  civilization,  will 
advance  progressively  toward  a  not  dis- 
tant millennium.  We  are  bitterly  con- 
scious of  the  failures  of  our  own  at- 
tempts.   How  little  has  been  realized  of 

[681 


Nineteenth  Centuky  Libebalism 

that  democracy,  civilization,  federation 
of  the  world,  from  which  so  much  was 
hoped  when  Tennyson  wrote  his  Locks- 
ley  Hall!  We  are  hotly  aware  of  the 
injustice  of  the  economic  and  social  sys- 
tem. We  thought  we  were  creating  a 
brotherhood  of  man,  and  our  republic 
turns  out  to  be  a  mere  plutocracy. 
Industrial  capitalism  confers  one-tenth 
of  the  common  product  on  the  toilers 
and  nine-tenths  on  the  idlers.  In  days 
like  these  men  want  an  altruistic  reli- 
gion, a  religion  of  ethics  and  a  righteous 
social  order,  the  moral  religion  of  the 
prophets  and  of  Jesus,  with  its  law  of 
*  greatness  through  service'  and  its 
ideal  of  a  brotherhood  of  the  race  under 
the  fatherhood  of  God. 

Why  not,  then,  for  the  Eeligion  of  the 
Future,  go  back  to  the  gospel  of  Jesus, 
discarding  the  ** pagan  intrusions*'  of 
the  age  of  Paul? 

No  adequate  answer  to  that  question 
can  be  tainted  with  personal  prejudice, 
theological  bias,  or  individual  sentiment. 
To  be  effective  it  must  be  made  in  the 
spirit  of  the  historian  of  religion,  who 

[69] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

judges  of  the  future  by  the  past.  The 
historian  anticipates  new  adaptations 
from  a  vital  and  growing  faith;  but  he 
forecasts  their  nature  by  knowledge  of 
the  faith  itself  in  its  original  formation, 
and  by  comparison  with  previous  eras  of 
change.  From  this  point  of  view  there 
can  be  but  one  answer;  Historically 
Christianity  is  a  religion  about  Jesus, 
originating  with  a  psychological  expe- 
rience of  his  disciples  which  we  term 
the  Eesurrection,  and  propagated  under 
Hellenistic  influences. 

To  say  that  there  is  nothing  new  in 
the  proposals  of  Nineteenth  Century 
Liberalism  is  to  concede  exactly  what  its 
advocates  maintain.  In  their  enthusi- 
asm for  getting  back  to  the  facts  of  his- 
tory they  have  not  only  gone  back  to  the 
beginning  of  our  religion.  They  have 
gone  clear  past  the  beginning  and  come 
out  on  the  other  side  in  pure  Judaism. 
The  Christian  religion  did  not  begin 
with  the  earthly  life  of  Jesus.  That  is 
an  idea  which  arose  after  the  period  of 
the  Apostles  in  the  age  of  the  Evange- 
lists such  as  Mark.    Our  religion  began 

[70] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

with  the  ^*  manifestation  of  the  Son  of 
God/'  which  was  not  a  physical  but  a 
psychical  experience.  It  began  with  the 
Cross  and  Resurrection,  the  doctrine 
about  Jesus.  Of  course  this  experience 
was  conditioned  on  what  had  gone  be- 
fore. The  known  example  and  teaching 
of  the  Galilean  prophet  gave  content  to 
the  all-important  proper  name  in  the 
confession  '^ Jesus  is  Lord."'  That  ex- 
ample and  teaching  in  themselves  repre- 
sented simply  Judaism  brought  to  its 
perfect  consummation  and  flower,  the 
religion  of  the  prophets  freely  inter- 
preted by  One  in  whom  their  very  spirit 
was  incarnate.  Paul  and  others  who 
brought  this  gospel  of  the  Resurrection 
of  Jesus  to  the  Gentile  world  applied  the 
Hellenistic  conceptions  of  Incarnation 
and  Redemption  to  the  story  of  Cal- 
vary. 

What  right,  then,  have  we  to  call 
it  an  *  intrusion''  when  Paul  interprets 
that  tragedy,  together  with  his  own  sub- 
sequent experience  and  that  of  others 
in  whom  (to  use  his  own  expression) 
*^God  energized '^  through  the  Spirit  of 

[71] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Jesus  to  give  the  knowledge  and  power 
of  sonsMp  and  eternal  life,  by  the  use 
of  Hellenistic  conceptions  ?  Had  all  the 
Greek-speaking  Gentile  world  converted 
by  Paul  and  his  fellow-preachers  of  the 
*  gospel  of  reconciliation'  no  rights  of 
citizenship  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  be- 
cause forsooth  Jesus  was  a  Jew  and 
spoke  Aramaic?  Paul  himself  admits 
that  for  the  confirmation  of  the  prom- 
ises made  to  the  fathers,  Jesus  was 
made  ^*a  minister  of  the  circumcision." 
But  he  does  not  admit  that  **God  is  the 
God  of  the  Jews  only  and  not  of  the 
Gentiles  also."  The  experience  of  re- 
demption, sonship,  participation  in  the 
eternal  life  of  God  through  the  spirit  of 
Jesus  have  been  no  small  factor  in  his- 
toric Christianity.  These  have  found 
expression  in  myriads  of  lives  that  knew 
little  enough  of  his  earthly  career.  Are 
we  the  spiritual  children  of  our  Jewish 
mother  only,  and  not  also  of  our  Gentile 
father?  If  so,  we  must  logically  repu- 
diate Paul,  and  humbly  return  to  the 
Galilean  apostles  who  knew  him  after 
the  flesh.    We  must  seek  a  late  admission 

[72] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

to  the  little  group  of  reformed  Jews  in 
Palestine  who  made  James,  the  Lord's 
brother,  a  kind  of  Caliph  in  Jerusalem, 
and  for  a  century  or  so  continued  to 
regard  themselves  as  the  only  heirs 
apparent  of  the  coming  kingdom. 

Such  a  narrow  type  of  Jewish  Chris- 
tianity actually  did  exist  from  the  be- 
ginning. It  repudiated  Paul  and  all  his 
works.  It  looked  upon  Jesus  as  the 
** Prophet  like  unto  Moses,''  whose 
teachings,  if  obeyed,  would  induce  God's 
sending  him  into  the  world  again  as  the 
Messiah,  to  restore  the  kingdom  to 
Israel.  It  confined  its  horizon  to  the 
twelve  tribes  of  Israel,  with  a  penum- 
bra of  Gentile  converts  **  clinging  to  the 
skirts  of  him  that  is  a  Jew,"  and  it 
continued  in  existence  as  late  as  150 
A.  D.  At  this  date  Justin  and  other 
Greek  fathers  describe  the  sect,  etymolo- 
gizing their  name,  ^Ebionite,'  to  mean 
*poor'  in  respect  to  Christology.  Like 
the  rest  of  orthodox  Jews,  the  Ebion- 
ites  could  see  God  in  nature  and  God  in 
history;  they  recognized  that  Jesus  was 
an  incomparable  teacher  in  this  aspect 

[73] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

of  religion.  But  there  they  stopped 
short.  To  see  God  in  personality,  as  the 
Greek  sees  him,  was  to  them  abomina- 
tion and  blasphemy.  Paul's  conception 
of  the  message  to  the  world  as  a  doctrine 
about  Jesus,  a  gospel  of  '^God  reconcil- 
ing the  world  in  Christ''  preached  by 
** ministers  of  the  new  covenant"  who 
had  seen,  like  Moses,  ^'the  light  of  the 
knowledge  of  the  glory  of  God,"  but  *4n 
the  face  of  Jesus  Christ" — that  was 
beyond  them.  They  could  not  see  that 
the  personality  of  Jesus  in  his  life, 
death,  and  resurrection  is  a  phenomenon 
which  has  significance  for  our  personal- 
ity. That  was  an  idea  which  only  the 
Greek  mind  was  ready  for.  Since  Plato 
it  had  come  to  concern  itself  with  the 
relation,  now  and  hereafter,  of  the  con- 
scious self  to  its  preexisting,  infinite 
Source,  the  conscious,  purposing  God. 
To  the  whole  Greek-speaking  world  of 
Paul's  day,  including  Greek-speaking 
Jews  like  himself,  this  had  become  the 
main  thing  in  religion.  To  the  Ebionite 
it  was  nothing.  The  Ebionite  remained 
a  practical,  moral,  ^reformed'  Jew. 

[741 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

For  the  Greek  Christian,  on  the  con- 
trary, the  real  story  of  Jesus  was  not 
the  story  of  the  Nazarene  prophet  like 
unto  Moses;  nor  was  the  Greek  Chris- 
tian's expectation  of  the  coming  Christ 
the  hope  for  a  second  and  greater  David. 
His  version  of  the  redemption  story  was 
a  drama  of  the  unseen.  It  began  with 
Incarnation — entrance  of  an  element  of 
the  divine  nature  into  the  world  in  the 
person  of  Jesus.  It  touched  the  depth 
of  pathos  in  Atonement — ^the  suffering 
of  this  divine  Being  in  and  for  our  hu- 
manity. It  culminated  in  his  victory 
over  our  foes  of  sin  and  death.  The 
Greek  Christian's  expectation  of  Christ 
was  that  of  a  Forerunner  of  our  Immor- 
tality,^ welcoming  his  brethren  into  the 
life  hid  with  him  in  the  bosom  of  his 
Father.  Can  we  wonder  that  to  the 
Greek  Christian  the  ethics  of  the  Ser- 
mon on  the  Mount  and  the  ^  paternal  the- 
ism' of  the  Lord's  Prayer  taken  alone 
represented  an  *  impoverished'  form  of 
the  gospel?  How  could  we  expect  Justin 
Martyr  midway  in  the  second  century 

8  Of.  Acts  4:  15,  Heb.  2:  10,  12:  2  (Greek). 
[75] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

to  do  otherwise  than  hold  that  the  Jew- 
ish Christian  who  had  failed  to  take  in 
the  significance  of  this  drama  had  never 
risen  to  the  true  meaning  of  the  gospel, 
never  got  beyond  a  reformed  and  uni- 
versalized Judaism!  In  point  of  fact, 
as  Jewish  Christianity  dwindled  and 
Greek  Christianity  increased,  the  Greek 
Christian  at  last  lost  patience  and  main- 
tained that  the  Jewish  Christian,  if  he 
persisted  in  his  intolerance  of  the 
ampler  Gentile  gospel,  should  be  ex- 
cluded from  the  Church  altogether. 

IV.  The  rivalry  between  that  ethical 
type  of  Christianity  to  which  Nineteenth 
Century  Liberalism  looks  back  and  the 
mystical  did  not  cease  with  the  second 
century.  In  that  age  the  conception 
which  views  it  as  a  doctrine  about  Jesus, 
the  revelation  of  God  to  man  and  of 
man  to  himself,  embodied  in  the  story  of 
Calvary  had  the  upper  hand.  Individ- 
ual personality  and  its  destiny  was  the 
great  interest  of  the  day,  and  so  far  as 
the  history  of  religion  enables  us  to 
judge,  this  interest  can  never  cease  to  be 

[76] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

felt.  For  men  are  concerned  with  more 
than  racial  destiny.  The  individual  is 
not  made  for  the  social  order,  bnt  the 
social  order  for  the  individual.  Hence 
while  the  Empire  lasted  personal  re- 
demption and  immortality  played  a 
larger  part  in  men's  religious  interest 
than  questions  of  social  duty  and  the 
evolution  of  a  Kingdom  of  God.  Gentile 
Christianity,  with  its  Greek  ideas,  its 
inheritance  from  the  mystical  religions 
of  individual  redemption,  its  interest  in 
personality  in  man  and  God,  had  free 
course  and  was  glorified.  The  theology 
it  built  up  for  the  Church  was  based  on 
Paul,  elaborated  by  Greek  thinkers, 
consolidated  by  Augustine.  It  became 
our  theology,  our  Christianity  in  system- 
atic form.  But  Semitic  *  liberalism' 
when  ejected  as  heretical  from  the  fel- 
lowship of  Nicsea  did  not  cease  to  be. 
It  experienced  a  marvellous  renaissance 
on  its  own  ancestral  ground,  that  grew 
and  flourished  as  the  Empire  fell  into 
decay. 

We  are  apt  to  forget  that  there  was 
a    Unitarian    movement    against    the 

[77] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

Christianity  of  the  Greek  theologians 
many  centuries  before  the  days  of  Chan- 
ning.  This  type  of  Unitarian  belief 
numbers  its  adherents  today  by  the  hun- 
dred million  against  the  few  hundred 
thousands  of  our  own  nineteenth  cen- 
tury Bostonian  variety,  and  is  still 
spreading  at  a  surprising  rate.  I  mean 
the  great  movement  of  reaction  against 
the  Greek  type  of  Christianity  which 
started  in  the  seventh  century  from  the 
Syrian  coast  and  Arabia  with  the  cry: 
** There  is  no  God  but  God  (the  God 
of  Abraham)  and  Mohammed  is  his 
prophet."  If  we  put  ** Jesus''  in  place 
of  ** Mohammed'' — and  every  good  Mos- 
lem will  admit  that  until  Mohammed  this 
would  be  right — ^you  have  the  same  kind 
of  religion  in  Islam  that  you  would 
have  if  you  carried  back  Christianity 
to  the  period  before  Paul.  Ebionism 
had  a  creed  exactly  equivalent :  *  *  God  is 
the  God  of  Abraham,  Moses,  and  David ; 
and  Jesus  is  his  Prophet."  And  Mo- 
hammedan unitarianism  is  a  present- 
day  force  by  no  means  to  be  despised. 
It  is  less  scientific  than  Nineteenth  Cen- 

[78  1 


Nineteenth  Century  Libeealism 

tury  Liberalism ;  but  those  who  know  it 
at  first  hand  know  that  it  more  than 
makes  up  in  sincerity  of  conviction,  in 
ardor  of  missionary  zeal,  and  in  success 
of  missionary  effort,  for  its  medieval 
world-view. 

Do  not  think  I  am  depreciating  the 
historico-critical  Nineteenth  Century 
Liberalism  by  this  comparison.  Far 
from  it.  One  must  see  Islam  as  it  is 
to  see  what  a  social,  ethical  religion  can 
do  for  barbarous  conditions  of  life.  I 
make  the  comparison  for  the  sake  of 
perspective  and  alignment.  The  two 
attempts  to  reconstruct  Christianity, 
Islam  and  Nineteenth  Century  Liberal- 
ism, are  of  the  same  order,  though  sepa- 
rated by  thirteen  centuries.  Their  com- 
mon viewpoint  is  that  the  Greek  ele- 
ment in  Christianity,  the  doctrine  that 
the  person  and  fate  of  Jesus,  in  his  work, 
his  martyrdom,  his  resurrection,  rightly 
interpreted,  contain  (in  Hegel's  phrase) 
a  ** representation  of  the  divine  idea,'' 
is  all  ** pagan  intrusion";  and  that  the 
results  of  biblical  criticism  invite  us  to 
discard  it.     So  conceived,  the  work  of 

[79] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

the  historical  critic — ^if  he  himself  may 
be  permitted  to  judge — ^is  indeed  a  mag- 
nificent failure.  He  has  kept  the  base 
metal  and  thrown  away  the  silver.  Dr. 
Anderson  will  be  justified  in  speaking 
of  the  **  Collapse  of  Liberal  Christian- 
ity, ' '  if  its  only  result  is  to  reason  itself 
back  into  Judaism,  annul  the  marriage 
of  Semitic  with  Aryan  faith,  and  disown 
the  parent  from  which  it  drew  the  vital 
energy  of  its  earliest  and  greatest  days. 
Eeligion  may  choose  for  its  asylum  be- 
tween Synagogue  and  Mosque.  The 
Church  henceforth  will  be  but  an  empty 
shrine. 

But  no;  Nineteenth  Century  Liberal- 
ism is  far  from  having  said  the  last  word 
on  the  Eeligion  of  the  Future.  Never- 
theless, it  is  well  to  remember  the  great 
words  it  has  said.  The  biblical  criticism 
to  which  it  appeals  has  indeed  made  re- 
construction unavoidable.  And  it  has 
supplied  some  of  the  most  indispensable 
elements  for  the  structure.  It  has  re- 
stored to  us  from  the  Synoptic  Gospels 
the  priceless  legacy  of  the  Historical 
Jesus,  resting  on  the  witness  of  Mat- 

[80] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

thew  and  Peter.  It  has  put  the  records 
of  historical  fact  into  critical,  scientific 
form,  just  at  the  exigency  when  they 
were  needed.  On  the  other  hand  it  has 
not  given  us  the  Eeligion,  the  Christian- 
ity, of  the  Future.  It  has  not  even,  as 
yet,  given  us  the  real  Christianity  of  the 
past,  the  Christianity  that  won  the  Gen- 
tile world  in  the  days  of  Peter  and  Paul. 
For  that  we  must  look  to  further  and 
wider  results  of  the  critic's  work,  his 
study  of  the  doctrine  about  Jesus,  the 
interpretation  given  by  primitive  be- 
lievers to  the  work  of  God  effected  by 
the  Spirit  of  Jesus.  His  death,  his 
resurrection,  inwardly  experienced  by 
these  men  as  **the  power  of  God  unto 
salvation '' — these  are  the  most  impor- 
tant data  in  all  the  psychology  of  reli- 
gion, to  speak  only  from  the  scientist's 
point  of  view. 

The  resurrection  experience  was 
necessarily  described  by  those  who  had 
it  under  the  forms  of  thought  and  speech 
available  to  their  time.  Critics,  if  their 
work  is  to  have  value,  must  distinguish 
between  pre-critical  and  critical  history, 

[81] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

pre-scientific  and  scientific  reflection 
upon  experience.  Pre-critical  report  we 
call  tradition'  or  *  legend/  Pre-scien- 
tific theology  we  call  *mytli. '  Those  who 
fail  to  understand  the  object  of  criticism 
regard  these  terms  *  legend'  and  ^myth' 
as  opprobrious.  When  a  great  scholar 
of  our  time,  describing  the  Redemption 
doctrine  of  the  Pauline  missionary 
preaching,  declares: 

This  whole  point  of  view  is  a  myth  from 
beginning  to  end,  and  cannot  be  termed  any- 
thing else It  is  the  story  of  a  God  who 

had  descended  from  heaven.* 

the  common  assumption  is  that  the  critic 
means  to  reject  this  apostolic  interpre- 
tation of  the  career  of  Jesus  as  worth- 
less, whereas  it  really  implies  only  that 
Paul's  interpretation  is  precisely  what 
it  was  required  to  be  to  fit  the  capacity 
of  a  pre-philosophic  age. 

But  call  this  apostolic  interpretation 
what  you  will,  *myth'  or  *  theology'  or 
*  philosophy, '  the  experience  for  which  it 
stands    is    the    inward    work    of    God 

4  Wernle,  Beginnings  of  our  Beligion,  I,  p.  251. 

[82] 


Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism 

effected  through  the  Spirit  of  Jesus,  and 
that  experience,  then  and  now,  repre- 
sents the  acme  in  the  psychology  of 
religion.  If  the  Apostle  ^s  expression  of 
his  experience  is  unsuitable  to  our  time 
let  it  be  recast — let  us  make  a  better. 
The  very  last  thing  the  true  critic  and 
historian  of  religion  will  do  with  *mythi- 
caP  interpretations  of  genuine  expe- 
rience is  to  throw  them  away.  In  the  con- 
cluding Lecture,  on  Idealistic  Monism 
and  its  proposals  for  the  reconstruction 
of  Christianity,  I  shall  have  occasion  to 
speak  of  the  results  of  criticism  in  the 
mythology  of  the  faith;  for,  as  you 
know,  the  Idealistic  Monist  finds  the  be- 
ginnings of  our  religion  quite  rightly  in 
the  gospel  about  Jesus,  and  even  con- 
siders its  mythology  to  be  its  sole  ele- 
ment of  value.  But  Idealistic  Monism 
also  makes  its  appeal  to  the  results  of 
criticism,  and  may  be  judged  by  the  his- 
tory of  a  corresponding  tendency  in  the 
early  Church. 


[83 


in 

TWENTIETH    CENTUEY    MYTHI- 
CAL IDEALISM 

I.  Let  me  remind  you  of  the  state- 
ment made  in  the  previous  lectures  that 
Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism  is  not 
the  only  claimant  to  represent  the  reli- 
gion of  the  future.  The  reconstruction 
of  Christianity  proposed  by  the  Ideal- 
istic Monists,  Kalthoif  and  Drews  in 
Germany,  J.  M.  Robertson  and  K.  C. 
Anderson  in  England,  and  W.  B.  Smith 
in  this  country,  is  also  a  candidate.  And 
Idealistic  Monism  is  the  opposite  of 
Nineteenth  Century  Liberalism.  It  pro- 
poses to  discard  the  history  and  retain 
the  mythology.  It  favors  Greek  thought 
as  against  Semitic.  It  looks  upon  Paul 
as  the  real  founder  of  Christianity,  and 
in  the  extreme  form,  represented  by 
Drews,  Robertson,  and  Smith,  it  even 
denies  that  there  ever  was  a  historic 
Jesus.  Where  Paul  in  his  letters  refers 
to  events  in  the  career  of  Jesus  critical 

[841 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

surgeons  of  this  school  operate  at  once. 
The  passage  must  be  removed  as  a  for- 
eign body.  Others  of  saner  judgment, 
such  as  Mauernbrecher,  admit  that  the 
historical  portrait  drawn  by  the  critics 
is  in  the  main  trustworthy,  but  they  de- 
mand to  know  how  one  is  to  worship  a 
saint  without  a  halo.  Schnehen,  for 
example,  pours  out  the  vials  of  his  scorn 
upon  the  ^liberals'  whom  he  designates 
*  ^  Jesus-worshippers. ' '  The  uncritical 
traditionalist,  says  Schnehen,  is  in  a  way 
consistent.  He  has  always  been  taught 
to  think  of  Jesus  as  a  superhuman  Being 
temporarily  resident  on  the  earth.  Such 
worship  is  justifiable.  The  *  liberal,' 
says  Schnehen,  is  inconsistent.  He  has 
taken  away  the  halo  of  mythology  and 
substituted  a  modern  portrait.  But  he 
still  continues  to  bow  down  in  worship 
as  before — or  at  least  pretends  to.  Fie 
on  such  hypocrisy,  is  his  cry.  Speak  the 
truth  out  squarely,  and  confess  that 
Jesus  either  never  lived  at  all,  or  that 
his  earthly  career  was  not  substantially 
different  from  other  men's  and  has  no 
bearing  on  the  case.    Religion  does  not 

[85] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

concern  itself  with  questions  of  history. 
Eeligion  concerns  itself  with  the  expe- 
rience of  the  soul,  and  the  artless  lan- 
guage of  this  experience  is  myth.  Com- 
parative mythology,  therefore,  is  the 
proper  basis  for  the  religion  of  the  fu- 
ture. 

The  Monist's  proposal  has  had  a 
startling  effect,  where,  as  in  Germany, 
it  has  been  brought  squarely  before  the 
people  in  great  public  conventions. 
Walls  and  fences  have  been  placarded 
with  ** Jesus  did  live,''  and  ** Jesus 
lives. ' '  In  Berlin  vast  crowds  stood  for 
hours  on  the  steps  of  the  great  Court 
Church  singing  chorals  and  the  Emperor 
himself  took  part  in  the  controversy. 
Meantime  the  Monists  were  making  a 
sensational  propaganda  through  the 
principal  cities  of  the  Empire,  and  since 
that  the  propaganda  has  been  system- 
atically organized  abroad.  Drew's 
*  ^  Christ-myth, "  already  in  its  tenth  or 
eleventh  edition  in  Germany,  has  been 
recently  translated  and  published  in  this 
country  by  the  Open  Court  Publishing 
Company  of  Chicago,  organ  of  the  Mon- 

[86] 


Twentieth  Centuky  Idealism 

ists,  and  the  theological  journals  are 
now  exchanging  shots  over  the  new 
battle-gronnd. 

As  I  said  in  the  first  lecture  of  this 
series,  the  Monist  propaganda,  active  as 
it  is,  does  not  strike  the  historian  of  reli- 
gion as  important  in  itself,  but  simply 
as  a  symptom.  It  indicates  that  we  are 
being  swept  by  the  first  waves  of  a  reac- 
tion from  the  ethical  toward  the  mystical 
pole  of  Christian  thought.  We  are  be- 
ginning to  feel  again  the  insatiable  hu- 
man needs  which  gave  birth  to  our  reli- 
gion in  the  first  place,  and  to  realize  that 
Christianity  did  not  begin  as  a  system 
of  ethics  taught  and  lived  by  Jesus  as 
conditioning  the  Kingdom  of  God.  It 
began  as  a  doctrine  about  Christ  which 
aimed  to  express  the  inward  experience 
of  Peter  and  Paul.  The  Christology  of 
Peter  was  antecedent  to  that  of  Paul. 
It  expresses  itself  in  the  utterance: 
*  *  God  hath  made  that  same  Jesus  whom 
ye  crucified  both  Lord  and  Christ.*'  It 
is  an  apotheosis  doctrine.  That  of  Paul 
is  expressed  under  the  form  of  a  descent 
and  ascent,  in  Hindu  phraseology  an 

[87] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

avatar  doctrine:  The  spirit  which  was 
in  Jesus  came  into  the  world  from  God. 
It  so  fully  pervaded  and  controlled  his 
nature  as  to  give  him  complete  victory 
over  sin  and  death,  the  foes  of  human- 
ity. The  proof  of  this  appears  in  the 
fact  that  after  his  death  the  same  Spirit 
was  received  by  other  men  in  his  name, 
Paul  himself  being  of  the  number, 
transforming  their  personality.  This 
is  essentially  an  Incarnation  doctrine. 
Paul  has  many  expressions  to  describe 
his  psychological  experience  which  I 
need  not  repeat,  ^^new  birth,''  ^^new 
creation,''  *  laying  hold  on  life,"  ^*  liv- 
ing in  the  Spirit,"  and  the  like.  For 
him  the  main  point  was  the  moral  trans- 
formation by  which  he  found  it  now  pos- 
sible— ^yes,  easy — to  overcome  the  ^4aw 
of  sin  in  his  members"  which  had 
*^  warred  against  the  law  of  his  mind, 
bringing  him  into  captivity  to  sin  and 
death."  Others,  less  keenly  susceptible 
on  this  moral  side,  were  more  impressed 
by  the  spectacular  phenomena  accom- 
panying early  Christian  assemblies,  the 
charismata  or   *^ gifts   of  the   Spirit." 

[88  1 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

What  we  have  to  note  is  that  the  Spirit 
of  Jesus,  after  his  crucifixion,  effected 
certain  psychological  phenomena  in  a 
group  of  men  which  they  give  account  of 
in  the  doctrine  that  God  has  made  him 
'^Lord,''  ^^ Christ,^'  ^ ^ Redeemer, ' '  *^Son 
of  God''  for  humanity.  Our  religion 
began  with  the  testimony  to  this  experi- 
ence thus  interpreted.  It  was  a  **  wit- 
ness of  the  resurrection.''  In  Peter  it 
took  a  form  conditioned  by  his  acquaint- 
ance with  Jesus  ** after  the  flesh."  In 
Paul  its  form  was  conditioned  by  the 
fact  that  his  knowledge  of  Jesus  was 
** after  the  Spirit"  only.  You  cannot 
deny  the  psychological  experience;  for 
it  still  continues.  You  can  indeed  say: 
The  interpretation  hitherto  put  upon  it 
is  fanciful  and  unphilosophic.  Doubt- 
less Peter's  interpretation,  and  Paul's 
too,  was  pre-scientific.  But  that  only 
calls  upon  you  to  give  a  better  and  more 
philosophic  one.  That  is  what  the 
Monist  means  when  he  says :  Mythology 
is  the  true  foundation  for  religion. 

We  may  heartily  and  sincerely  com- 
mend this  view  in  two  respects. 

[89] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

(1)  It  is  true  to  history  in  reminding 
us  that  Christianity  began  as  a  teaching 
about  Jesus,  not  as  the  teaching  of 
Jesus.  This  is  something  which  Nine- 
teenth Century  Liberalism  did  seem  in 
danger  of  forgetting. 

(2)  The  Monist's  view  is  also  true  to 
philosophy  in  making  the  chief  concern 
of  religion  the  welfare  of  the  individual 
soul.  Having  once  attained  to  the  con- 
sciousness of  an  individual  personality, 
the  human  being  must  concern  himself 
with  the  welfare  of  this  new-found 
treasure.  Even  his  concern  for  the  wel- 
fare of  others  must  now  transcend  con- 
ditions of  bodily  comfort.  Their  *  per- 
sonality' must  have  room  to  develop  as 
well  as  his.  Eeligion  must  henceforth 
have  for  him  as  its  primary  object 
the  bringing  of  his  own  *  personality' 
into  right  relations — relations  not  of  the 
present  only,  but  of  the  eternal  world. 
Until  he  has  secured  this  highest  good 
for  himself — *  salvation'  is  the  *  mytho- 
logical' term  for  it — ^he  cannot  expect  to 
secure  it  for  others.  But  what  is  ^  salva- 
tion' when  we  cease  to  think  in  terms  of 

r901 


Twentieth  Centuey  Idealism 

mythology  and  begin  to  think  in  terms 
of  scientific  psychology? 

Christianity,  as  I  have  said,  was  in 
its  early  days  only  one  of  a  number  of 
religions  of  personal  redemption,  most 
or  all  of  them  oriental,  which  were  offer- 
ing *  salvation,'  and  competing  for  the 
adherence  of  the  mixed  masses  of  the 
cosmopolitan  Empire.  The  old  national 
religions  had  crumbled  with  the  nation- 
alities concerned.  Judaism  had  been 
transcendentalized,  the  religion  of  Rome 
had  been  made  cosmopolitan  in  the  form 
of  emperor-worship.  The  new  sense 
of  the  value  of  individual  personality, 
largely  a  product  of  Greek  thinking,  was 
expressing  itself  in  a  revival  of  the 
myths  and  ritual  forms  of  ancient 
nature-worship.  The  old  chthonic  reli- 
gions which  had  personified  the  power 
of  astral  motion,  or  of  vegetal  and  ani- 
mal fructification  and  reproduction, 
were  recast  in  forms  to  give  expression 
to  the  soul's  aspiration  after  this  inde- 
structible life  and  power.  Christianity 
triumphed  because  it  met  this  need  and 
met   it  better   than  its   rivals.     Forty 

[91] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

years  ago,  yes,  even  twenty,  we  knew 
almost  nothing  about  this  prodigious 
movement  of  the  human  mind  between 
the  time  when  Alexander  married  Asia 
to  Europe  and  that  when  the  Antonine 
emperors  set  up  the  national  religion  of 
Rome  as  a  new  and  universal  state  reli- 
gion. Our  generation  has  seen  the  rise 
of  the  school  of  comparative  mythol- 
ogy {die  religions geschichtliche  Schule), 
Bousset  and  Gunkel  have  showed  how 
Persian  and  Greek  ideas  were  respon- 
sible for  the  later  developments  of 
Judaism.  R.  H.  Charles  has  given  us 
editions  of  the  apocalyptic  literature, 
with  its  hierarchies  of  angels  and 
demons  and  its  dualistic  world-view. 
We  have  obtained  an  insight  into  the 
nature  of  Pharisaism  with  its  book-reli- 
gion, its  doctrines  of  angels  and  spirits, 
of  individual  resurrection  and  partici- 
pation in  the  world  to  come.  Rohde's 
Psyche,  Reitzenstein's  Poimander  and 
Krebs'  Der  Logos  als  Heiland  have 
opened  the  mines  of  Hermetic  specula- 
tion of  Egypt  and  shown  from  another 
angle   how   the    Hellenistic   mind   was 

[92] 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

absorbed  with  the  idea  of  personal  im- 
mortality by  participation  in  divine  life. 
Dieterich's  Mithras  Liturgie  and  Cu- 
mont's  enlightening  studies  have  thrown 
light  on  the  process  by  which  Eoman 
paganism  was  submerged  under  the 
flood  of  mystery-cults  from  the  East. 
The  mystery-cult  of  Mithra,  carried  by 
Roman  armies  from  Persia  to  Britain, 
was  only  the  last  and  most  formidable 
of  these  rivals  of  Christianity.  Percy 
Gardner  and  Gilbert  Murray  have  lifted 
a  corner  of  the  curtain  from  the  Greek 
mysteries.  Frazer's  Adonis,  Attis, 
Osiris  has  revealed  the  persistence  into 
medieval  times  of  these  prehistoric 
forms  of  nature-worship.  All  have 
proved  that  the  treatment  of  the  story 
of  Jesus,  as  Paul  and  the  Greek-Chris- 
tian world  treated  it,  was  simply  inevit- 
able. The  theme  of  the  Dying  and  Ris- 
ing World  Redeemer,  which  one  of  the 
recent  booklets  of  the  comparative 
Religionists  takes  as  its  title,  was  the 
stock  in  trade  of  the  oriental  religions. 
There  were  scores  of  them.  The  ancient 
nature-myths  of  Orpheus  descending  to 

[93] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

the  other  world  to  bring  back  dead 
Eurydice,  Osiris,  Attis,  Adonis,  return- 
ing from  the  realms  of  death,  sun- 
heroes  like  Marduk,  Mithra,  Herakles, 
renewing  their  strength  in  conflict  with 
the  powers  of  death  and  darkness — all 
these  were  brought  out  and  refurbished, 
because  in  the  piping  times  of  peace,  and 
in  the  world-culture  of  the  Empire,  men 
had  come  to  realize  that  they  had  indi- 
vidual souls,  and  had  begun  to  think 
quite  as  much  about  what  was  going  to 
become  of  these  as  about  what  was 
going  to  become  of  tribe  or  nation. 
The  Empire  should  take  care  of  itself. 
It  is  because  the  tragedy  of  Calvary 
was  enacted  in  a  generation  that  had 
risen  to  this  level  of  consciousness  that 
it  gave  rise  to  a  new  religion,  and  not  to 
a  mere  reformation  of  Judaism.  What 
Philo  sought  to  do  and  could  not,  because 
he  spoke  only  from  the  academic  halls 
of  Alexandria,  Paul  the  **  apostle  to  the 
Gentiles"  accomplished.  We  in  our 
generation  have  just  begun  to  realize  the 
real  psychological  situation  in  the  first 
century   A.   D.,   which   made   the   new 

[94] 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

world-religion  possible.  And  of  course 
we  begin  to  have  at  once  a  school  of 
transcendentalists  who  say:  ^^What  is 
the  use  of  the  historical  element  in 
Christianity  anyway  V^  *  *  Why  not  take 
simply  the  mythology  that  the  first 
century  insisted  on  applying  to  the  case 
of  Jesus,  and  reduce  it  to  modern 
scientific  terms  V 

These  are  the  first  fruits  of  the  so- 
called  Religions  geschichtliche  Schule, 
the  school  of  New  Testament  criticism 
which  treats  its  religious  ideas  as  the 
silver,  and  seeks  to  understand  these 
ideas  in  relation  to  current  phases  of  the 
age-long,  instinctive  aspiration  of  hu- 
manity toward  some  sort  of  participa- 
tion in  the  cosmic  life. 

What  now  is  true  in  this  contention? 
It  is  true  that  Christianity  never  would 
have  become  a  world-religion  at  all  but 
for  the  inward  experience  of  Saul  of 
Tarsus,  a  typical  Hellenistic  experience 
of  individual  soul-redemption.  We  may 
say  truly  that  Saul  of  Tarsus  never 
would  have  had  this  experience  if  he  had 
not  been  born  and  bred  on  Gentile  soil. 

[95] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

Jew  as  lie  was,  it  was  not  the  conserva- 
tive type  of  Judaism  which  he  followed 
— the  Sadducean — nor  the  political- 
Zealotry.  It  was  Pharisaism,  the  pro- 
gressive type,  the  transcendental.  Sanl 
of  Tarsus  had  followed  it,  we  are  told, 
under  Gamaliel,  a  rabbi  famous  for  his 
study  of  Greek  literature.  SauPs  soul- 
devouring  pursuit  had  been  an  ideal  of 
personal  redemption,  an  ideal  which, 
however  firmly  rooted  in  Judaism,  espe- 
cially in  Pharisean  Judaism,  in  the  time 
of  Paul,  is  not  of  Hebrew  origin.  It  is 
born  of  the  antithesis  between  flesh  and 
spirit.  It  springs  from  the  discovery  of 
the  personal  ego,  *the  inward  man,' 
projected  against  the  background  of  a 
material  world,  alien,  if  not  hostile,  to 
the  spirit.  This  self-discovery  of  the 
soul  was  not  a  discovery  of  the  Hebrew 
prophets.  It  is  the  response  of  Greek 
thought  to  the  Delphic  motto:  **Kjiow 
thyself. ' '  And  Pharisaism  as  a  religion 
of  personal  redemption  developed  in  two 
directions.  One  was  the  legalism  of  the 
synagogue  from  which  Paul  revolted. 
The  other  was  a  religion  of  the  Spirit. 

[96] 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

II.  Knowledge  of  these  contemporary 
conditions  of  religious  thought  leads 
to  the  following  general  proposition: 
Personal  religion  in  our  sense  of  the 
term  may  be  regarded  broadly  as  a  pro- 
duct of  Graeco-Eoman  cosmopolitanism. 
But  it  did  not,  and  could  not,  fully 
develop  on  the  ordinary  basis  of  alle- 
gorized mythology.  Christianity  pre- 
vailed because  of  its  more  solid  basis  of  ^ 
historic  fact. 

We  may  well  approve  the  Monist's 
championship  of  mythology.  It  repre- 
sents the  mystical,  individual  factor  in 
religion,  that  is,  pre-scientific  theology. 
But  the  Monist's  reading  of  history  is 
wrong.  In  the  providence  of  God  the 
mystical  religion  of  personal  redemp- 
tion came  to  effective  expression  only  . 
through  the  acquisition  of  a  social  body. 
It  became  incarnate  when  it  laid  hold  of 
the  Christ-idea.  An  adequate,  ultimate 
personal  Redeemer  for  individual  souls 
was  found  only  in  the  World-saviour,  the 
Prophet  of  Nazareth,  the  Christ  of  the 
new  kingdom,  who  had  now  been  made 
*Lord.' 

[97] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

PauPs  conversion,  it  is  true,  was  con- 
ditioned by  the  hunger  of  his  own  soul 
for  ^redemption'  in  more  than  the 
ancient  Hebrew  sense,  in  something  of 
the  Greek  sense,  i.e.,  emancipation  of  the 
soul  by  aflfiliation  with  God.  But  Paul 
would  never  have  found  the  satisfaction 
of  his  own  soul-hunger  in  the  doctrine 
that  *  Jesus  is  the  Christ'  if  others 
before  him,  victims,  like  Stephen,  of  his 
persecuting  zeal,  and  still  others  before 
Stephen,  back  to  Peter,  whose  conver- 
sion Paul  explicitly  makes  parallel  in 
all  essential  points  with  his  own,  had  not 
had  an  equivalent  experience  of  the 
risen,  glorified  Jesus  as  a  personal 
Redeemer.  The  beginning  of  our  reli- 
gion was  the  doctrine  of  Hhe  Spirit' 
as  an  effluence  from  the  risen  Jesus. 

There  is  a  profound  justice  not  only 
in  the  representation  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment that  Christianity  began  as  a  wit- 
ness of  the  resurrection,  but  also  in  its 
manifold  witness  that  this  redemptive 
experience,  from  which  our  religion 
starts,  must  be  traced  in  the  first  in- 
stance to  Peter.    At  first  sight  there  may 

[98  1 


»    '  »  '    * 
J  '    »    * 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

seem  to  be  no  vital  significance  in  the 
mere  names  *Paul,'  *  Peter.'  If  we  are 
studying  as  a  basis  for  the  religion  of 
the  future  the  psychological  experience 
which  has  found  classical  expression  in 
the  Christian  doctrine  of  redemption, 
what  difference  can  it  make  who  led  the 
way?  If  anything  one  would  say,  Let 
Paul  be  the  founder.  The  experience  of 
Paul  is  relatively  clear;  for  his  whole 
gospel  is  based  on  it.  That  of  Peter  is 
most  obscure;  for  the  secondary  narra- 
tives which  come  down  to  us  have  un- 
fortunately eclipsed  the  record  of  this 
vital,  fundamental  event,  how  Peter  was 
*^ converted"  after  the  crucifixion,  and 
*  Established  his  brethren. '^  All  that 
remains  is  a  few  traces  of  how  Peter 
became  the  Eock-foundation  of  the  new 
brotherhood,  the  Pillar  of  the  new 
temple;  how,  as  Luke  says,  ^Hhe  Lord 
appeared  to  Simon,''  or  how,  as  Paul 
says,  E^God  energized  in  Peter  unto  an 
apostleship  of  the  circumcision. ' '  About 
all  we  know  of  Peter's  experience  is  the 
bare  fact  that  the  risen  Christ  was 
** manifested  to  him."     This  primitive 

[99] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

form  of  the  gospel  of  the  resurrection 
has  been  superseded  by  traditions  which 
concern  themselves  only  with  later  dis- 
putes about  what  became  of  Jesus '  body, 
traditions  which  play  no  part  whatever 
in  PauPs  report  of  the  common  apostolic 
testimony  to  the  fundamental  inward 
experience,  and  need  play  no  part  in  our 
own  religious  faith.  It  surely  is  dis- 
appointing to  know  so  little  about  the 
most  basic  fact  in  the  whole  history  of 
our  religion.  But  ^  learn  from  the 
enemy  \^  The  vain  endeavors  of  the 
opponents  of  historical  Christianity  to 
rid  themselves  of  these  references  of 
Paul  to  Peter's  experience,  the  anticipa- 
tion of  his  own,  testify  to  their  value. 
Much  as  the  Monists  dislike  to  have  it  so, 
Peter  and  not  Paul  was  the  founder  of 
the  resurrection  faith. 

The  one  thing  we  do  know  for  certain 
about  the  psychological  origin  of  our 
religion  is  that  it  did  not  begin  in  the 
speculative  mind  of  a  late  Jewish  theo- 
logian, filled  with  the  strange  and 
mingled  ideas  of  Hellenistic  Judaism, 
unchecked  by  any  personal  recollection 

[100] 


Twentieth  Centuby  Idealism 

of  Jesus  as  he  was.  It  began  in  the 
mind  of  one  who  had  known  Jesus  inti- 
mately, a  plain  and  simple  Galilean, 
whose  heart  had  been  riven  by  an  agony 
of  remorse,  despair,  and  bitter  self- 
humiliation  that  made  his  experience  in 
those  days  of  Calvary  a  full  equivalent 
for  PauPs,  but  one  whom  we  know  other- 
wise only  as  a  plain  man  of  the  people. 
Paul  in  his  letters  again  and  again  de- 
scribes his  religious  experience  as  a 
participation  in  the  passion  of  Jesus,  a 
dying  and  rising  again  with  Christ. 
Peter  ^s  is  not  only  referred  to  by  him  as 
similar;  we  can  see  for  ourselves  that 
it  must  needs  have  been  so. 

Meagre  indeed  is  our  knowledge  of  the 
inward  experience  of  those  pre-Pauline 
disciples,  but  they  have  left  us  one 
record,  one  testimony  of  their  faith,  as 
full  of  meaning  as  the  Pauline  Epistles 
themselves,  if  only  we  knew  how  to  inter- 
pret it.  I  mean  the  rite  of  baptism, 
adopted  in  the  days  immediately  after 
the  crucifixion,  as  a  distinctive  rite  of 
individual  initiation  into  a  separate 
community    of    believers    in    Jesus    as 

[  101  ] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

'Lord'  and  'Christ.'  The  primitive  dis- 
ciples, we  are  told,  were  ''baptized  every 
one  of  them  into  the  name  of  Jesus*'; 
and  this  baptism  was  ''/or  the  for- 
giveness of  their  sins.''  Why  was  this? 
What  leads  this  group  of  men  who  had 
companied  with  Jesus  since  the  baptism 
of  John,  now  that  they  have  become 
convinced  that  God  has  raised  him  from 
the  dead  and  made  him  both  Lord  and 
Christ,  to  hark  back  beyond  all  their 
intercourse  with  him,  beyond  his  preach- 
ing of  the  gospel  of  the  kingdom,  be- 
yond their  own  vague,  or  fantastic, 
or  materialistic  messianic  expectations, 
once  ruined,  now  again  reviving,  back 
to  the  experience  which  some  at  least 
hadhadof  the  baptism  of  John?  Why  do 
they  now  adopt  John's  rite  of  a  "bap- 
tism of  repentance  unto  remission  of 
sins"  as  the  token  of  their  new-found 
faith  in  Jesus? — To  say  that  they  had 
had  an  oracle  of  the  risen  Lord  bidding 
them  do  so  is  only  putting  the  same 
thing  in  different  language.  It  means 
simply  that  in  doing  so  they  felt  that 

[  102  ] 


Twentieth  Centuby  Idealism 

they  were  obeying  the  Spirit  of  Jesus; 
but  why? 

There  is  only  one  thing  that  the  adop- 
tion of  this  Johannine  rite  of  lustration 
in  preparation  for  the  kingdom  of  God 
can  mean  at  this  time.  It  means  that  as 
in  Peter,  so  in  the  rest  there  was  a  pro- 
found sense  of  unreadiness  without 
some  moral  renewal  for  the  kingdom 
whose  dawn  they  deemed  to  be  just 
breaking.  The  fact  that  the  adoption 
of  the  rite  was  attended  by  ecstatic 
manifestations  identified  by  all  as  ^^the 
Spirit  of  Jesus/'  and  by  the  highest- 
minded  as  tokens  of  the  impartation  of 
his  moral  disposition,  is  enough  to  prove 
that  even  before  Paul  the  risen  Christ 
was  looked  to  as  a  personal  Eedeemer, 
a  Saviour  of  individual  souls  from  sin 
and  death.  The  rite  of  baptism  proves 
that  Peter  and  other  predecessors  of 
Paul  shared  his  overwhelming  sense  of 
moral  unworthiness.  They  had  not 
*  persecuted  the  Church,'  but  there  was 
cause  enough  in  the  contrast  at  the  great 
crisis  of  Calvary  just  past,  between 
Jesus'  faithfulness  and  their  own  cow- 

[103] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

ardly  desertion.  By  this  or  some  other 
means  the  sense  of  sin  had  come  to  so 
predominate  over  any  previous,  more 
worldly  messianic  expectations  they 
may  have  entertained  that  the  need 
most  deeply  felt  was  moral.  They 
longed  for  personal  redemption.  They 
were  more  ready  now  to  cry  out:  *^ De- 
part from  me,  for  I  am  a  sinful  man,  0 
Lord,"  than  to  ask:  ** Grant  that  we 
may  sit  one  at  thy  right  hand  and  one 
at  thy  left  in  thy  glory. ' '  The  adoption 
at  this  time  of  the  rite  of  * '  baptism  unto 
remission  of  sins"  by  the  first  followers 
of  Jesus  means  that  their  old  messianic 
ideas  had  been  remoulded  by  the  still 
regnant  spirit  of  Jesus.  In  the  tragedy 
of  the  cross  they  had  been  refined  and 
purified  as  by  fire.  The  adoption  of  this 
rite,  and  the  experience  of  its  attendant 
phenomena  prove  that  Jesus'  disciples 
had  at  last  been  brought  over  to  his 
point  of  view.  The  essence  of  the 
expected  kingdom  was  now  to  them  also 
a  direct  and  filial  relation  with  God, 
and  without  a  baptism  of  the  Spirit 
they   felt   unprepared  to   walk  in   the 

[104] 


Twentieth  Centuey  Idealism 

presence  of  the  living  God.  Only 
as  they  became  Christ  *s,  not  in  word 
only,  but  in  very  life  and  fact  and  in- 
ward reality,  could  they  be  ready.  If 
they  proved  themselves  actually  his  in 
the  same  sense  as  when  he  had  said  in 
Galilee,  **  Whosoever  will  do  the  will  of 
my  Father,  the  same  is  my  brother  and 
sister  and  mother,''  then  they  might 
indeed  expect  with  full  assurance  the 
forgiveness,  the  free  entrance  into  the 
kingdom  which  he  had  promised  in  the 
name  of  the  Heavenly  Father  to  repent- 
ant publicans  and  harlots.  Such  con- 
siderations as  these  can  alone  account 
for  their  being  now  **  baptized  every  one 
of  them  into  the  name  of  Jesus,  confess- 
ing their  sins.''  And  the  awakening  to 
this  moral  perception  can  be  attributed 
to  no  other  cause  than  contact  with  the 
spirit  of  Jesus,  the  man  whose  life  had 
been  lived  in  their  presence  as  one  who 
*  walked  with  God.' 

There  are  those  who  think  the  criti- 
cally sifted  records  of  the  resurrection 
appearances  do  not  warrant  the  infer- 
ence of  any  external  objective  factor. 

[  105  ] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Others  think  such  a  factor  to  be  neces- 
sarily implied,  even  while  they  refuse  to 
attribute  to  it  qualities  apprehensible  to 
the  senses,  and  hold  open  the  unknown 
possibilities  of  discarnate  spiritual  ac- 
tion. Even  this  difference  is  not  abso- 
lutely vital.  The  fundamental  psycho- 
logical fact  is  that  these  men  were  re- 
newed— *  saved' — by  contact  with  the 
spirit  of  Jesus.  Those  who  felt  the 
experience  believed  it  immediate  and 
supernatural.  Suppose  it  was  in  reality 
an  unconscious  echo  and  reflection  of 
the  days  in  Galilee.  Still  it  was  an  expe- 
rience of  God  **  reconciling  the  world  in 
Christ,  not  imputing  unto  men  their 
trespasses.''  In  short,  the  experience 
of  personal  redemption  began  even  be- 
fore Paul.  And  it  began  by  contact  with 
and  knowledge  of  a  Christ  whose  mes- 
sianic work  consists  in  making  men  after 
his  own  likeness  *^sons  and  daughters 
of  the  Highest." 

III.  From  this  consideration  of  the 
implications  of  the  early  adoption  of  the 
rite  of  baptism,  and  the  real  lessons  to 

[106] 


Twentieth  Centuby  Idealism 

be  learned  from  the  mythologic  school 
of  criticism,  we  turn  to  another  aspect 
of  the  matter.  For  the  mythologists, 
too,  appeal  to  history,  and  in  reality 
the  Christ  of  mythology  had  a  completer 
trying  out  in  the  second  century  than 
any  which  could  be  given  today  even  to 
a  modernized  and  rationalized  Christ- 
myth. 

With  the  baptism  of  water  primitive 
believers  experienced  invariably  a  bap- 
tism of  the  Spirit  of  Jesus.  Its  out- 
ward and  spectacular  effects  were  tem- 
porary, as  Paul  foresaw  they  would  be. 
Its  abiding  effects  were,  and  still  are, 
the  essential  phenomena  of  Christian- 
ity. They  that  have  made  themselves 
Christ's  experience  an  adoption  as  sons 
into  a  fellowship  with  God  like  that  of 
Jesus  to  the  Father  in  heaven  in  whom 
his  spirit  rested.  They  become  Christ- 
like. These  are  the  essential,  permanent 
phenomena  in  the  history  of  Christian- 
ity. This  is  the  psychology  of  religion 
in  the  stage  to  which  it  has  been  brought 
through  the  events  of  the  evangelic 
story.    Can  we,  or  can  we  not,  erect  upon 

[107] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

these  a  permanent  structure  of  absolute 
religion? 

Certainly  not  without  the  historic  life 
and  death  of  Jesus  to  give  meaning 
and  content  to  the  term  **  becoming 
Christ's.''  We  have  seen  that  the  reli- 
gious experience  of  Paul  was  condi- 
tioned by  that  of  his  predecessors  who 
had  known  the  historic  Jesus.  Paul's 
experience  can  be — should  be — reinter- 
preted in  the  light  of  the  psychology  of 
religion  as  modern  science  understands 
the  term.  His  phraseology  and  forms 
of  thought,  borrowed  from  Rabbinic 
Judaism  and  Hellenistic  speculation, 
should  be  translated  into  the  idiom  of 
philosophy.  But  this  translation,  if 
worthily  done,  will  not  alter  the  fact. 
We  shall  still  have  before  us  a  typical 
experience,  expressive  of  the  utmost 
reach  of  redemptive,  or  mystical,  reli- 
gion. Two  thousand  years  is  not  a  long 
time  in  the  evolution  of  conscious  per- 
sonality, and  I  doubt  if  we  can  point  to 
evidences  of  advance  beyond  the  reli- 
gious consciousness  of  Paul ;  though  pos- 
sibly we  may  have  outgrown  the  phrase- 

[108] 


Twentieth  Centuey  Idealism 

ology  whereby  he  expresses  it,  such  as 
^  ^  adoption/ '  *  ^  apprehension  of  the  life 
of  God,''  **  entrance  into,"  or  *  laying 
hold  upon,"  *^the  life  that  is  hid  with 
Christ  in  God."  The  reinterpretation 
of  this  typical  Christian  experience  is  a 
problem  for  religious  psychology.  We 
may  safely  leave  it  to  those  who  have 
made  a  study  of  religious  psychology  in 
its  ancient  and  its  modern  modes  of 
expression.  But  those  who  propose  to 
treat  this  as  embodying  the  whole  vital 
substance  of  our  religion,  if  judged  from 
the  historian's  point  of  view,  are  sim- 
ply repeating  the  old  error  of  the  Greek 
ultra-Paulinists,  the  Docetic  Gnostics  of 
the  sub-apostolic  age,  against  whom  the 
Church  brought  forward  the  rich  treas- 
ures of  its  historic  tradition  of  the  teach- 
ing and  life  of  Jesus,  the  Matthsean  and 
the  Petrine  tradition. 

Never  was  there  an  age  of  mythology 
like  the  era  of  the  great  Gnostics,  Ce- 
rinthus,  Basilides,  Valentinus,  Marcion. 
And  their  Gnosticism  was  not  the  artless 
indulgence  of  the  poetic  imagination  to 
express  religious  and  philosophic  ideas 

[109] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

resorted  to  because  the  language  of  phi- 
losophy was  still  wanting.  It  repre- 
sented the  best  psychology  of  the  day. 
Gnosticism  was  not  naif.  It  was  to  the 
last  degree  conscious  and  artful.  It 
collected  from  all  the  mythologies  of 
antiquity  imaginative  expressions  of 
the  redemptive  idea,  and  interwove  with 
these  the  story  of  Calvary.  The  begin- 
nings of  this  great  ultra-  (or  pseudo-) 
Pauline  movement  called  forth,  as  I  have 
said,  from  the  Palestinian  branch  of  the 
Church,  what  we  designate  the  Synoptic 
Literature,  the  Churches  historic  tradi- 
tion, based  on  the  authority  of  Matthew 
and  Peter,  of  the  teaching  and  work  of 
Jesus.  And  this  again  led  to  a  further 
development.  From  Ephesus,  metropo- 
lis of  the  Pauline  mission  field,  came 
forth  in  turn  the  third  great  element  of 
the  New  Testament  canon,  the  so-called 
Johannine  literature,  aiming  to  combine 
in  due  proportion  the  historic  and  the 
mystical  elements  of  the  faith.  Later  de- 
velopments brought  ever  broader  combi- 
nation. Synoptic  and  Johannine  tradi- 
tion were  placed  side  by  side  in  the 

[110] 


Twentieth  Centuey  Idealism 

*  fourfold  Gospel.'  Extremes  on  both 
sides  were  discarded.  Gnosticism  was 
relegated  to  the  same  limbo  as  the 
anti-Pauline  reformed  Judaism  of  the 
Ebionites.  The  Church  catholic  followed 
instinctively  the  line  of  historic  develop- 
ment, recognizing  *' neither  Jew  nor 
Greek,''  but  only  the  **one  new  man  in 
Christ  Jesus." 

If  the  history  of  religion  can  teach  us 
anything  it  surely  should  teach  us  not 
to  repeat  the  mistake  of  the  post-apos- 
tolic age,  when  nearly  one-half  the 
Church  was  led  off  into  the  vague,  specu- 
lative, eclectic  theosophy  of  Gnosticism, 
rejecting  the  historic  Jesus  and  the  hope 
of  a  kingdom  of  God  on  earth  in  the  vain 
endeavor  to  build  religion  upon  psycho- 
logical experience  alone,  regardless  of 
the  ethical  impulse  of  the  past.  The 
line  of  historic  advance  was  then  what  it 
is  today,  what  it  must  continue  to  be 
so  long  as  Christianity  remains  the 
flower  of  the  religious  spirit  of  East  and 
West,  Semite  and  Aryan,  the  social  and 
the  individual  ideal. 

The  names  Peter  and  Paul  stand  thus 

[111] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

for  something  vitally  significant,  some- 
thing corresponding  to  the  twofold  as- 
pect of  our  religion  which  combines  in 
itself  the  individualism  of  the  Hellenist 
and  the  nationalism  of  the  Jew.  The 
religious  experience  of  Paul  himself  was 
conditioned  upon  the  previous  expe- 
rience of  those  who  before  him  had  been 
baptized  into  the  faith  that  Jesus  is  the 
Christ.  They,  too,  like  Paul,  had  gone 
through  an  experience  which  trans- 
formed their  Jewish  hopes  of  a  national 
and  social  redemption  into  a  new  type 
of  messianic  hope,  wherein  individual 
fitness  for  eternal  life  in  the  presence 
of  God  was  the  primary  consideration. 
This  was  the  supreme  effect  of  the  trag- 
edy of  Calvary.  But  this  effect  would 
not  have  been  attained,  there  would  have 
been  no  resurrection  hope,  even  of  the 
lower  type,  had  not  the  disciples  learned 
through  contact  with  the  historic  Jesus 
as  the  only  way  to  the  realization  of  this 
ideal  such  moral  consecration  as  his 
precepts,  his  life,  his  death  exemplified. 
Once  and  for  all  the  ethical  goal  has 
been  set  for  humanity  in  Jesus '  doctrine 

r  112 1 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

of  the  Kingdom :  God's  will  to  be  ^^done 
on  earth  as  it  is  in  heaven.''  Eternal 
life  in  fellowship  with  God  has  been  con- 
ditioned on  the  law  of  love  and  service. 
The  consciousness  that  they  had  a  gospel 
for  the  world  came  to  Peter  and  those 
that  were  with  him  when  they  became 
aware  that  the  Spirit  of  Jesus  had 
brought  them  into  a  new  relation  with 
God. 

The  Petrine  gospel,  like  the  Pauline, 
has  its  local  and  temporary  limitations. 
Those  who  at  the  founding  of  the 
Church  were  **  baptized  into  the  name  of 
Jesus"  conceived  their  relation  to  him 
under  the  forms  of  Judaism.  They 
borrowed  their  phraseology  from  the 
prophecy  of  Daniel  and  from  the  one 
hundred  and  tenth  Psalm.  Doubtless 
they  could  give  but  a  crude  account, 
more  or  less  figurative  in  form,  of  their 
own  psychological  experience,  that  expe- 
rience which  we  call  the  Resurrection, 
and  of  which  we  can  only  say  that 
directly  or  indirectly  it  was  the  opera- 
tion upon  their  personality  of  the  per- 
sonality of  Jesus,  the  *  manifestation,' 

[  113  ] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

as  they  call  it,  of  Jesus  as  *Lord. '  Their 
account  of  this  is  in  fact  dominated  by 
the  current  ideas  of  the  Davidic  ruler 
exalted  to  sit  at  the  right  hand  of  God 
till  his  enemies  be  made  his  footstool. 
It  is  profoundly  influenced  by  the  apoca- 
lyptic figure  of  the  *Son  of  man'  coming 
to  judgment  upon  the  clouds  of  heaven. 
These  cruder  ideas  of  the  Jewish  mes- 
sianism  developed  since  the  Persian  pe- 
riod under  the  pressure  of  Hellenistic 
persecution  are  at  least  as  susceptible 
of  reinterpretation  as  the  more  philo- 
sophic ideas  of  Paul,  and  they  are  al- 
ready being  rapidly  transformed.  What 
we  have  to  remember  is  that  both  types 
of  religious  aspiration,  the  ^  eschatologi- 
cal,'  as  it  is  technically  termed,  and  the 
*  mythical,'  stand  for  actual  experiences 
which  are  repeated  in  successive  genera- 
tions of  individuals  and  of  the  race. 
Even  the  more  mystical  experience,  the 
consciousness  of  the  Hwice-born,'  has 
its  roots  in  history.  Men  who  today 
verify  for  themselves  the  inward  sense 
for  which  New  Testament  writers  sup- 
ply the  terms  *  adoption,'  ^sonship,'  and 

[114] 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

the  like,  pass  throTigh  this  experience 
not  because  of  Isis,  or  Attis,  or  Diony- 
sus, not  because  of  mythical  fancy  or 
philosophical  abstraction,  but  because  of 
the  historic  Jesus,  and  by  spiritual  con- 
tact with  him.  It  was  the  real  impress 
of  his  personality  that  wrought  the 
change  in  Peter.  Dismiss  from  consid- 
eration, if  you  will,  all  possibilities  of 
direct  action  from  behind  the  veil  of  the 
discamate  spirit  of  Jesus  on  the  soul  of 
his  penitent  disciple ;  even  so,  I  may  still 
justly  maintain  that  had  Jesus  *  life  and 
teaching  been  materially  different  from 
what  we  have  been  taught  they  were,  this 
basic  experience  of  Christian  psychology 
would  have  been  wanting.  For  Peter 
that  experience  voiced  itself  in  the  doc- 
trine that  ** Jesus  is  the  Christ.''  In  a 
sense,  Peter  is  the  Rock  on  whom  we 
all  are  builded.  Subsequent  experience, 
whether  of  Paul  or  of  later  generations, 
is  conditioned  by  that  which  went  be- 
fore. The  content  of  the  term  *  Christ' 
must  vary.  Paul  did  not  mean  by  it 
precisely  what  Peter  meant.  He  takes 
explicit  pains  to  discriminate  his  sense 

[115] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

for  the  term  from  that  it  had  to  some  of 
his  predecessors.  Our  sense  must  differ 
from  his.  We  do  not  and  cannot  mean 
by  *Hhe  Christ**  what  either  Peter 
meant,  or  Paul.  But  we  retain  the  vital 
elements  of  their  meanings  with  our 
own.  Historic  continuity  is  not  sacri- 
ficed. Christianity  will  continue  to  be 
what  it  ever  has  been,  the  confession  of 
Jesus  as  ^the  Christ,'  and  in  that  con- 
fession each  term  is  historic.  The  reli- 
gion of  the  future  must  grow  from  the 
double  stock  of  the  national  religion  of 
Israel   and   the   personality   of   Jesus. 

I  have  reached  the  conclusion  of  my 
task.  My  effort  has  been  to  enable  you 
to  look  at  two  significant  movements  of 
modern  religious  thought  from  the  view- 
point of  the  historian  of  religion.  Nine- 
teenth Century  *  Liberalism'  and  twen- 
tieth century  *  Idealism'  seem  to  me  from 
this  point  of  view  in  one  respect  alike. 
They  both  reflect  only  the  periodic  oscil- 
lation of  the  dominant  religion  6f  the 
world  between  the  hereditary  poles  of 
its  faith.     We  shall  not  swing  beyond 

[116] 


Twentieth  Century  Idealism 

our  orbit.  We  shall  progress  along  the 
line  of  true  advance.  But  our  progress 
will  be  swifter  and  surer  if  we  learn 
by  the  broad  experience  of  the  past. 
Christianity  is  not  only  a  social  but 
also  a  personal  religion.  It  is  not 
only  ethical  but  mystical;  not  only  the 
gospel  of  Jesus,  but  also  the  gospel 
about  Jesus.  Perhaps  I  cannot  better 
express  it  all  than  it  is  expressed  in 
the  two  oldest  and  simplest  prayers 
of  the  Church  that  we  possess.  They 
form  the  liturgy  for  the  sacrament  of 
the  breaking  of  bread  in  the  little  man- 
ual of  primitive  church  observance,  dis- 
covered only  a  few  years  ago  by  Bryen- 
nios  in  Constantinople,  and  now  pre- 
s^erved  in  Jerusalem,  the  so-called 
Teaching  of  the  Twelve  Apostles, 
These  are  the  two  prayers  prescribed 
in  it  for  the  consecration  of  the  broken 
bread;  one  a  thanksgiving  for  the  expe- 
rience of  personal  redemption,  the  other 
a  petition  for  the  realization  of  the 
kingdom  of  God.  The  individual  thanks- 
giving is  this : 

[117] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

We  thank  thee,  our  Father,  for  the  life  and 
the  knowledge  which  thou  hast  made  known 
to  us  through  Jesus  thy  Servant. 

And  to  this  the  response  is : 

To  thee  be  the  glory  forever. 

The  prayer  for  the  kingdom  of  God  is 
this: 

Even  as  this  broken  bread  was  scattered 
over  the  hills,  and  when  gathered  became  one 
loaf,  so  let  thy  Church  be  gathered  together 
from  the  ends  of  the  earth  into  Thy  King- 
dom. 

The  response  of  that  ancient  rubric 
will  find  echo  in  every  Christian  heart: 

For  thine  is  the  glory  and  the  power 
through  Jesus  Christ  forever.    Amen. 


[118] 


IV 


OLD  AND  NEW  IN  THE  CHARAC- 
TERIZATION OF  JESUS 

Pragmatism,  the  newest  fashion  in 
philosophy,  defines  ** truth''  to  be  the 
conception  which  '* works.''  We  need 
not  wonder,  then,  that  the  same  age 
which  makes  practical  service  the  test 
of  truth  should  declare  the  independence 
of  Christianity  from  the  historic  Jesus. 
Will  not  myth  produce  the  same  result 
as  fact,  if  accepted  as  fact?  Will  it  not 
nourish  aspiration,  hope,  faith,  every 
religious  disposition — yes,  even  when 
understood  to  be  myth  and  not  fact,  if 
myth  be  defined  as  we  have  defined  it — 
the  pre-scientific  expression  of  philo- 
sophic ideas?  It  may;  but  only  in  pro- 
portion as  those  ideas  are  understood  to 
be  *true.'  The  philosophic  ideas  must 
correspond  with  observed  fact.  And 
this  procedure  brings  us  round  to  a  com- 
plete reversal  of  the  pragmatic  princi- 

.      [  119  ] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

pie.  The  ideas  work  because  they  are 
true.  In  proportion  as  they  are  felt  to 
be  lacking  in  objective  reality  independ- 
ent of  individual  preference  they  lose 
their  efficacy. 

In  point  of  fact,  myth  not  only  may 
produce  the  good  fruits  of  religious  and 
moral  uplift.  It  has  produced  them. 
The  age  of  the  revival  of  myth,  the  age 
of  the  Hellenistic  mystery  religions,  was 
an  age  of  immense  religious  and  moral 
uplift,  as  we  have  seen.  The  revolution 
out  of  which  emerged  Christianity  vic- 
torious at  last  over  paganism  after  three 
centuries  of  mortal  conflict,  was  a  transi- 
tion of  the  civilized  world  to  a  higher 
level  in  matters  of  religion  and  ethics,  a 
transition  of  vast  importance,  on  the 
largest  scale;  and  in  that  transition 
Christianity  shared  with  its  rival  reli- 
gions of  the  Orient  the  great  conceptions 
of  personal  redemption,  union  with  God, 
and  immortality.  A  firm  foundation  in 
concrete  historic  fact  was  perhaps  its 
chief  point  of  superiority.  The  mystery 
religions  united  their  adherents  in  loy- 
alty to  the  cult-hero,  and  in  effort  for 

[  120  ] 


Characteeization  of  Jesus 

personal  and  social  redemption,  in  pro- 
portion as  the  myth  could  be  made  to 
seem  real.  Christianity  triumphed  over 
them  in  part  perhaps  because  of  its 
loftier  ideals,  but  certainly  to  no  small 
extent  because  of  its  manifestly  better 
claim  to  historical  reality.  Jesus  was 
an  actuality.  His  redemptive  career  be- 
longed not  to  the  shadowy  past  of 
ancient  fable,  but  to  recent  years.  He 
had  been  **  crucified  under  Pontius  Pi- 
late.'' The  Gnostic  sects  which  sacri- 
ficed history  to  myth,  tangible  fact  to 
metaphysical  idea,  perished  in  spite  of 
their  greater  conformity  to  the  spirit  of 
the  times.  The  catholic  faith,  strongly 
buttressed  upon  historic  tradition,  sur- 
vived. So  then,  while  myth  may  serve — 
while  it  has  served  the  cause  of  religious 
uplift,  on  condition  and  so  long  as  its 
vague  and  shadowy  symbolism  bodied 
forth  to  the  untutored  imagination  ideas 
and  truths  that  could  not  otherwise  ob- 
tain expression,  yet  fact  is  better  than 
fiction.  We  of  today  do  not  stop  with 
myth,  claiming  that  it  is  true  because  it 
works.     Neither  do  we  utterly  discard 

[121] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

myth  or  legend.  We  are  ever  seeking 
to  understand  it,  to  penetrate  it,  to  get 
beyond  it  and  beneath  it,  to  the  real 
objective  fact  which  works  because  it  is 
true. 

It  is  this  instinct  for  the  objectively 
true  which  makes  the  Quest  of  the  His- 
torical Jesus  a  quest  worth  while.  Ideal 
portraiture  has  its  value.  In  ages  of 
unquestioning  faith  nothing  more  is 
asked.  The  artist  is  not  called  upon  to 
be  historically  realistic.  If  he  express 
successfully  his  own  souPs  adoration, 
the  worshipper  takes  the  correspondence 
with  historical  fact  for  granted.  Indeed, 
attempts  at  historical  realism  are  re- 
sented. If  photography  could  reproduce 
the  face  of  Jesus  as  records  can  even 
now  reproduce  the  voices  of  men  no 
longer  living,  the  feat  would  probably 
rouse  the  same  antagonism  today  as  was 
roused  but  yesterday  by  historical  criti- 
cism of  evangelic  story.  But  historical 
criticism  has  made  its  way.  The  ages 
of  authority  and  unquestioning  faith 
are  gone.  A  new  age  has  succeeded, 
which  appreciates  better  the  value  of 

[122] 


Chaeactekization  of  Jesus 

objective,  ultimate  fact.  This  age  finds 
Christianity  the  leading  religion  of  the 
world.  It  is  an  existing  power,  perhaps 
increasing,  certainly  potential.  If  the 
loyalty  of  all  who  are  for  the  reign  of 
right  at  the  cost  of  sacrifice  is  ever  to 
be  concentrated  into  a  world-redeeming 
power,  it  will  be  *  4n  the  name  of  Jesus ' ' ; 
for  by  impartial  historic  survey  there 
is  none  other  given  among  men  whereby 
the  world  can  or  will  be  saved.  Seeing 
Christianity,  then,  as  it  is,  this  criti- 
cal, fact-loving,  authority-disdaining  age 
wishes  to  understand  the  power  thereof, 
to  study  its  development  from  the  roots. 
The  age  has  some  regard  for  what  the 
first  disciples  thought  about  Jesus,  real- 
izing that  only  through  these  beliefs  can 
we  come  at  the  ultimate  fact.  But  it  has 
a  greater  regard  for  the  fundamental 
fact,  an  instinctive  appreciation  that  the 
deepest,  most  vital  thing  in  Christianity 
is  the  personality  of  Jesus  himself. 

It  must  be  admitted  that  the  quest  is 
difficult.  The  only  documents  we  pos- 
sess whose  authorship  is  known,  or 
whose  date  falls  within  a  generation  of 

[123] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Jesus '  life-time,  are  the  greater  Epistles 
of  Paul.  And  the  Epistles  have  only  the 
scantiest  allusions  to  the  ministry  of 
Jesus,  no  reference  to  any  of  his  mighty 
works,  and  barely  a  half  dozen  to  some 
of  his  less  important  sayings.  Paul 
himself  explicitly  renounced  the  attempt 
to  *^know  a  Christ  after  the  flesh."  He 
intentionally  directed  all  attention  to 
**the  Spirit,''  a  present  redemptive 
agency  identical  to  his  mind  with  **the 
Lord. ' '  If  we  accept  the  view  of  one  of 
the  ablest  of  New  Testament  scholars, 
well-known  for  a  popular  Life  of  Jesus 
as  well  as  for  a  number  of  most  schol- 
arly technical  works,  even  the  personal 
character  of  Jesus  was  a  matter  of  un- 
concern to  Paul. 

It  may  be  definitely  affirmed  that  what  we 
designate  the  moral  and  religious  personal 
character  of  Jesus  had  no  influence  or  signi- 
ficance whatever  for  the  religious  feeling 
(Frommigkeit)  of  Paul.^ 

And  yet  the  same  writer  is  careful  to 
point  out  that  the  distinctive  feature  in 
PauPs    doctrine    identifying   the    risen 

1  Bousset,  Kyrios  Christos,  1913,  p.  143. 
[124] 


Chakacterization  of  Jesus 

Lord  with  **the  Spirit^'  was  its  moraliz- 
ing and  etMcizing  effect.  This  resulted 
from  an  extension  of  control  by  the 
Spirit  to  the  Christianas  whole  life.  The 
ordinary  view  in  PauPs  day  attributed 
the  ecstatic  phenomena  of  the  gather- 
ing for  worship,  *  prophecy/  *  tongues,' 
*  miracles'  and  the  like,  to  *the  Spirit.' 
Those  thus  gifted  were  designated 
** spiritual. "  Paul's  view  was  that  *4f 
any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
he  is  none  of  his."  He  maintained  that 
if  a  man  did  have  this  Spirit  he  must  be 
**led  by"  it,  everywhere  and  always. 
Christ  must  be  ^4n  him,"  and  he  *4n  the 
Lord."  The  life  which  he  lived  in  the 
flesh  must  be  no  more  his  own,  but 
Christ  living  in  him.  Whatsoever  he 
did,  in  word  or  deed,  he  must  *  *  do  all  in 
the  name  of  the  Lord  Jesus. ' '  And  the 
characteristic  feature  in  *  spirituality, ' 
as  Paul  conceived  it,  was  moral.  Every 
manifestation  was  to  be  tested.  It  must 
be  judged  by  a  standard  derived  from 
the  actual  character  of  ^  the  Lord. '  And 
the  distinctive  note  is  ministering  *  love. ' 
That  is  a  veritable  summing  up  of  what 

[125] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Paul  elsewhere  refers  to  as  ^Hhe  law  of 
Christ/'  when  in  his  farewell  epistle  he 
entreats  the  Philippians  by  their  love 
for  him  and  their  loyalty  to  the  Lord  to 
have  in  them 

the  mind  which  was  also  in  Christ  Jesus,  who, 
being  in  the  form  of  God,  counted  it  not  a 
booty  to  be  lawlessly  seized  to  be  on  an  equal- 
ity with  God  (like  Adam,  Gen.  3:1-5),  but 
emptied  himself,  taking  the  form  of  a  slave, 
being  made  in  the  likeness  of  men ;  and  being 
found  in  fashion  as  a  man  he  humbled  him- 
self, becoming  obedient  even  unto  death,  yea 
the  death  of  the  cross. 

This,  then,  is  a  characterization  of  Jesus. 
The  Apostle  who  could  rise  superior  to 
his  time  in  its  love  of  the  spectacular 
and  the  marvellous,  and  declare  that  the 
abiding  ** gifts''  of  the  Spirit  were  faith, 
and  hope,  and  love,  with  love  as  *^the 
greatest  of  these, ' '  had  no  small  sense  of 
the  value  of  the  moral  as  against  the 
magical  in  his  doctrine  of  the  Spirit. 
And  when  Paul  made  it  the  supreme  and 
only  test  of  true  discipleship  that  a  man 
must  have  and  be  led  by  *Hhe  Spirit  of 
Christ,"  always,  and  in  ** every  word 
and  deed,"  he  surely  had  some  very  dis- 

[126] 


Chakacterization  of  Jesus 

tinctly  definable  **  moral  and  religious 
character  *'  of  Jesus  in  mind. 

It  is  true  that  to  Paul  **the  Spirit  of 
Christ''  is  the  incarnate  Spirit  of  God, 
and  in  this  sense  there  is  weight  in  the 
objection  that  the  personal  religious  and 
moral  character  of  the  historic  Jesus 
was  to  him  a  matter  of  indifference. 
But  it  is  easy  to  take  such  an  affirmation 
in  a  very  misleading  sense.  In  reality  it 
would  have  been  impossible  for  Paul  to 
make  this  identification  of  *Lord'  and 
*  Spirit, '  if  the  actual  personal  character 
of  the  historic  Jesus  had  not  possessed 
in  extraordinary  degree  the  moral  and 
religious  qualities  which  are  required  in 
a  universal  ethical  standard.  It  is  also 
true  that  neither  Paul,  nor  those  to 
whom  he  commends  ^Hhe  mind  that  was 
in  Christ  Jesus,"  had  personal  knowl- 
edge of  the  details  of  Jesus '  life.  When, 
for  example,  in  II  Cor.  5 :  21  Paul 
refers  to  his  own  embassage  of  peace 
from  God  as  having  for  its  content 
the  atoning  sacrifice,  and  declares: 
**Him  who  knew  no  sin  he  made  to  be 
sin  on  our  behalf ;  that  we  might  become 

[127] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

the  rigMeousness  of  God  in  him/'  it 
would  be  absurd  to  imagine  enquiries  on 
the  part  of  Paul  or  his  predecessors  into 
the  thirty  unknown  years  of  Jesus'  life 
in  Nazareth  to  ascertain  its  faultless- 
ness.  That  would  have  been  a  quest 
almost  as  futile  then  as  now.  Only  in  the 
much  later  period  of  Johannine  apol- 
ogetic could  the  raising  of  such  an  issue 
seem  anything  less  than  a  foolish  provo- 
cation of  Jewish  opponents  to  blas- 
phemy. In  John  8 :  46 ;  9 :  24  fP.  the  ques- 
tion of  Jesus'  sinlessness  is  indeed  actu- 
ally brought  into  debate.  This,  however, 
is  only  later  theological  dialectic.  The 
context  of  II  Cor.  5 :  21,  especially  when 
compared  with  other  Pauline  references 
to  the  atonement,  such  as  Eom.  4 :  25 ; 
5:1,  9,  19,  and  more  particularly  still 
when  compared  with  I  Pt.  2 :  22-24, 
shows  that  Paul  is  simply  applying  to 
Jesus  the  attribute  of  the  suffering  Ser- 
vant of  Isa.  53 :  9,  who  (to  adopt  the  ren- 
dering of  I  Pt.  2:22)  *^did  no  sin," 
neither  was  guile  found  in  his  mouth. ' ' 

2  The  LXX  render  the  Hebrew  word  for  sin  by 
dvofila.  n  Cor.  5:  21  and  I  Pt.  2:  22  agree  in  rendering 
ifxaprla. 

[  128  ] 


Chaeacteeization  of  Jesus 

In  short,  Paul  himself  is  no  longer  in 
immediate  contact  with  the  historical 
Jesus.  This  must  be  frankly  admitted. 
He  stands  removed  by  at  least  one  very 
important  stage  from  the  personality  he 
reveres.  He  had  ^*  received ''  from 
others  the  doctrine  that  Christ  died  for 
our  sins  according  to  the  Scriptures  (I 
Cor.  15 :  4).  And  this  doctrine  certainly 
involves  the  viewing  of  Jesus'  earthly 
character  and  fate  from  a  more  or  less 
theoretical  standpoint.  Even  so  early 
as  the  time  when  Paul  himself  **  re- 
ceived'" his  impressions  of  the  historic 
Jesus,  they  were  already  idealized,  con- 
ventionalized, conformed  to  a  theoretical 
standard.  His  ^^sinlessness,"  **  humilia- 
tion, ' '  obedient  suffering  for  others,  and 
** exaltation,"  were  traits  of  the  suffer- 
ing Servant  of  Isa.  52 :  13 — 53 :  12,  who 
brings  both  Israel  and  the  Gentile  world 
into  reconciliation  with  God  by  his 
martyrdom,  and  is  thereafter  *  lifted  up 
very  high"  and  made  to  ** divide  the 
spoil  of  the  strong. ' ' 

^I  Cor.  15:  3,  irapiXafiov,  the  word  is  the  technical  term 
for  transmission  of  traditional  teaching. 

[129] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Whether  Paul  received  this  concep- 
tion of  Jesus  as  the  *  suffering  Servant' 
from  the  original  Galilean  disciples,  or 
(as  seems  on  philological  grounds  much 
more  probable)  from  the  early  com- 
munity or  communities  of  Hellenistic 
believers,  is  a  secondary  question.  The 
fact  is  undeniable  that  his  conception  of 
the  historic  Jesus  has  already  passed 
through  at  least  one  stage  of  idealiza- 
tion. The  admission  may  well  seem 
unwelcome.  If  even  one  earliest  witness 
is  secondary,  and  presents  a  protrait 
already  conventionalized,  what  value 
can  attach  to  narratives  of  wholly  un- 
known authorship,  originating  at  a 
remove  in  time  at  least  double  that  of 
the  Pauline  letters? 

Modern  criticism  recognizes  but  two 
main  sources  of  real  and  definite  his- 
torical value  in  the  evangelic  literature 
of  the  early  church,  the  Gospel  of  Mark, 
and  the  source  combined  with  it  on  dif- 
ferent principles  by  Matthew  and  Luke 
which  critics  designate  by  the  symbol 
Q.  The  Gospel  of  John  because  of  its 
late  origin  and  didactic  character  cannot 

[  130  ] 


Chakacterization  of  Jesus 

be  employed  for  the  history  of  Jesus, 
though  of  incomparable  value  for  the 
history  of  primitive  belief  about  Jesus. 
The  Book  of  Acts  employs  sources  of 
greater  value  than  the  fourth  Gospel 
for  the  earlier  history  of  belief  about 
Jesus;  but  again  this  is  merely  sec- 
ondary. Of  real  attempts  to  describe 
the  ministry  of  Jesus  we  have  but 
Mark  and  Q,  to  set  over  against  the 
scanty  allusions  of  Paul;  and  neither 
Mark  nor  Q  attempts  a  really  historical 
pen-portrait.  These  are  works  of  reli- 
gious edification,  not  of  critical  history; 
defenses  of  the  existing  faith  and  prac- 
tise of  the  community  of  believers 
whence  they  proceed,  not  impartial  re- 
searches into  their  origins.  They  too 
have  their  theoretical  conceptions  of 
Jesus'  character,  career  and  fate,  and 
set  in  relief  what  bears  out  the  theory. 

If,  then,  the  quest  be  so  perplexing 
and  difficult,  must  not  the  result  be  too 
uncertain  for  real  value?  Must  we  not, 
however  sadly,  resign  the  attempt  to 
characterize  the  historical  Jesus?  The 
answer    to    this    question    will    largely 

risii 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

depend  on  the  nature  of  the  ** value" 
sought.  If  it  be  that  with  which  the 
secular  historian  is  mainly  concerned, 
the  results  which  can  be  safely  predicted 
will  be  meagre  indeed.  Not  much  more 
of  Jesus'  public  activity,  his  teaching, 
career  and  fate,  will  be  surely  estab- 
lished than  might  be  gleaned  from  the 
scanty  references  of  Pliny,  Tacitus,  and 
Suetonius.  But  the  secular  values  are 
not  those  which  are  now  supposed  to  be 
in  question.  Religion  does  require  a 
true  portrait;  and  therefore  every 
attainable  trait  of  historical  realism  will 
be  welcome.  But  it  does  not  require  a 
physical  portrait.  What  it  needs  to 
know  is  the  spiritual  and  moral  element 
in  the  character  of  Jesus.  And  the 
spirit  survives,  A  man's  contempora- 
ries are  doubtless  far  better  qualified 
than  later  generations  to  give  the  sensu- 
ous testimony  of  eye  and  ear.  The  lapse 
of  but  a  few  years  will  suffice  in  case  of 
even  the  greatest  men  to  obliterate  the 
memory  of  mere  physical  characteristics 
unless  memory  be  sustained  by  art.  But 
for  spiritual  portraiture  the  later  gener- 

[132] 


Chaeactebization  of  Jesus 

ation  is  apt  to  be  the  better  qualified. 
On  points  of  character  we  may  often 
better  rely  on  the  judgment  of  the 
second  or  third  generation  than  on  that 
of  the  first.  And  in  the  case  of  the 
greatest  qualities  of  all  we  are  wont  to 
find  the  rule  a  true  one  that  **the  things 
which  are  seen  are  temporal,  the  things 
which  are  not  seen  are  eternal.  *'  Not 
the  tangible  facts,  not  the  physical  linea- 
ments, remain;  but  that  subtle,  intangi- 
ble, elusive  thing  we  designate  *  charac- 
ter.' Immortality,  were  it  only  of 
fame,  belongs  not  to  the  body,  but  to  the 
soul.  From  the  standpoint  of  moral  and 
spiritual  values,  as  regards  faith  and 
hope  and  love,  as  regards  personality 
and  character,  heroism,  virility,  stedfast 
devotion  to  principle  and  duty,  Wash- 
ington and  Lincoln  are  better  known 
today  than  to  their  contemporaries. 
And  it  is  true  not  only  of  them  but  of 
all  the  truly  great,  of  all  whose  greatness 
is  inward  and  spiritual.  The  earthly 
house  of  this  tabernacle  is  dissolved,  but 
the  inward  man  is  renewed  and  glorified ; 
it  is  clothed  upon  (to  use  PauPs  mingled 

[  133  ] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

metaphors)  with  a  house  not  made  with 
hands,  eternal  in  the  heavens. 

It  is  so  with  the  character  of  Jesus. 
The  traits  which  remain  are  traits  of 
moral  and  religious  value,  for  the  obvi- 
ous reason  that  those  who  became  his 
disciples  were  concerned  with  these 
values,  and  only  these.  But  the  sub- 
ordination— ^yes,  even  to  disappearance 
— of  the  physical  and  temporary  is  far 
from  invalidating  the  historicity  of  the 
spiritual  and  moral.  It  proves  only  the 
relative  unimportance  of  the  external. 
At  a  period  so  early  as  to  evoke  per- 
petual amazement,  Jesus'  followers  felt 
that  no  other  representation  could  do 
justice  to  his  qualities  of  soul  than  to  de- 
scribe his  career  as  incarnating  every  en- 
dowment of  the  Spirit  of  God.*  He  was 
apotheosized,  and  apotheosized  by  mono- 
theistic Jews.  Moreover,  this  apoth- 
eosis (to  judge  by  our  oldest  and  most 
trustworthy  sources)  was  not  because  of 

*  This  is  the  sense  of  the  expression  of  Paul  in  Col. 
1:  19:  *'It  was  the  (divine)  'good  pleasure'  that  the 
whole  'fulness'  (of  spiritual  agencies)  should  dwell 
down  in  him";  and  of  Jn.  1:14,  16.  An  early 
uncanonical  gospel  expresses  it  by  saying,  ' '  The  whole 
fountain-head  of  the  Spirit  descended  on  him." 

[134] 


Chaeactekization  of  Jesus 

marvellous  deeds  of  power,  which  Paul 
never  refers  to,  but  mainly  on  the  basis 
of  moral  qualities.  If  any  say.  But  the 
apotheosis  was  a  consequence  of  the 
resurrection;  we  reply,  The  apotheosis 
was  the  resurrection.  Jesus  could  not 
have  been  ** manifested  as  the  Son  of 
God  with  power  by  the  resurrection 
from  the  dead''  (Eom.  1:4),  if  to  those 
who  received  the  manifestation  he  had 
not  first  been  known  as  one  whose  per- 
sonality was  worthy  of  such  enthrone- 
ment. In  that  transfiguring  glory  the 
memory  of  earthly  individual  traits 
could  not  long  endure.  Only  that  which 
was  God-like  in  Jesus  remained.  But 
the  God-like  was  not  grafted  in.  The 
earthly  dissolved  away.  As  Paul  felt 
regarding  his  own  life,  that  it  was  **hid 
with  Christ  in  God,"  so  the  personality 
of  Jesus  himself.  Its  traits  of  great- 
ness were  those  that  are  **hid  in 
God,*'  and  find  their  manifestation 
when  that  which  is  mortal  has  returned 
to  earth,  and  the  spirit  has  returned  to 
God  who  gave  it. 
We  must  not,  then,  expect  to  find  the 

[  135  ] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

lesser  traits  of  Jesus'  character  re- 
flected in  the  records  that  remain.  Paul 
and  Mark  and  Q  are  our  authorities, 
and  none  of  these  is  a  primary  source. 
None  aims  to  furnish  the  pen-portrait 
the  historian  covets.  The  most  that 
criticism  can  effect  is  to  identify  the 
model  in  each  case.  For  the  conception 
of  Paul  is  one,  the  conception  of  Mark 
is  another,  and  the  conception  of  Q  is 
a  third.  Each  is  theoretic,  because  each 
is  maintained  in  the  interest  of  an  iden- 
tification of  Jesus  with  one  of  the  exist- 
ing conceptions  of  Messiah  and  his  work. 
Each  is  more  or  less  affected  by  the 
intermingling  of  other  theoretic  ideals, 
so  that  we  cannot  speak  of  the  Pauline 
as  purely  a  doctrine  of  Christ  as  *Lord,' 
of  the  Markan  as  purely  a  doctrine  of 
Christ  as  *  Son  of  God, '  of  Q  's  as  purely 
a  doctrine  of  Christ  as  the  incarnate 
*  Wisdom  of  God,'  the  suffering  *  Ser- 
vant.' They  are  only  predominantly 
thus  characterized. 

But  each  is  also  historical.  The  titles, 
and  the  conceptions  for  which  they 
stand,  would  not  have  been  applied  to 

[  136  ] 


Chakactekization  of  Jesus 

Jesus,  or  if  applied  would  not  have  met 
the  acceptance  necessary  to  their  sur- 
vival, if  they  had  not  been  felt  to  be 
appropriate.  And  the  application  was 
so  early  that  those  who  made  and  those 
who  accepted  it  could  know  by  authentic 
report,  if  not  from  personal  experience, 
to  what  degree  the  titles  and  ascriptions 
were  in  keeping  with  the  life.  In  short, 
primitive  Christology,  with  its  titles  and 
ascriptions,  its  symbols  and  its  Scrip- 
ture fulfilments,  is  the  luminous  haze 
through  which  the  critic's  eye  must 
penetrate  for  outlines  of  the  historic 
Jesus.  Our  dependence  for  any  really 
authentic  portrait  must  be  on  writers 
who  had  already  enshrined  him  in  the 
central  sanctuary  of  their  devotion.  And 
for  this  pui-pose  they  used  the  sym- 
bols and  forms  of  thought  made 
sacred  by  long  and  hallowed  use.  As 
the  sculptor  (particularly  the  ancient 
sculptor)  employs  the  conventionalized 
forms  of  the  great  artists  of  the  past, 
often  even  rebaptizing  old  divinities 
under  new  names  into  the  service  of 
another  faith,   so   the   authors   of  our 

[137] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Gospels,  and  the  coiners  of  the  primitive 
titles  of  the  glorified  Jesus,  employed 
existing  religious  ideals  and  concepts, 
whose  development  the  scholar  must 
trace  out  if  he  would  understand  why 
they  were  deemed  applicable  and  appro- 
priate. 

Such  is  the  task  to  which  scholars  of 
various  schools  are  today  addressing 
themselves.  For  example,  a  study  of 
the  primitive  titles  of  Christ  forms  the 
basis  of  the  scholarly  and  thorough 
work  of  Bousset,  entitled,  Kyrios  Chris- 
toSy  the  most  recent  contribution  to  the 
subject.  It  is  an  essential  factor  in  the 
outstanding  treatise  of  Schweitzer,  The 
Quest  of  the  Historical  Jesus,  the  repre- 
sentative work  of  the  school  of  ^'consist- 
ent eschatologists, ' '  who  account  for  the 
apotheosis  of  the  crucified  Galilean  by 
attributing  to  Jesus  himself  the  use  of 
the  title  *Son  of  man'  as  his  own  ' 'favor- 
ite self -designation. ' '  Those  who  follow 
the  lead  of  the  ''consistent  eschatolo- 
gists'' disclaim  all  connection  with 
psychopathic  judgments  of  Jesus.  They 
are  careful  to  point  out  that  an  adop- 

[138] 


Chakacterization  of  Jesus 

tion  by  John  the  Baptist  and  Jesus  of 
the  world-view  of  the  writers  of  apo- 
calypse, that  somewhat  morbid  and  de- 
generate type  of  later  prophecy,  does 
not  involve  forfeiture  of  our  respect. 
Even  if  John  and  Jesus  made  the  apoc- 
alyptic expectation  of  the  impending 
world-cataclysm  their  own  primary  mes- 
sage, they  will  still  be  the  representative 
religious  leaders  of  a  representative 
age.  This  may  surely  be  granted.  We 
may  admit  that  even  on  grounds  accept- 
able to  the  ^consistent  eschatologist, ' 
it  will  still  be  possible  to  look  to  the 
teaching  of  Jesus  as  uniquely  great,  even 
if  delusive  in  any  literal  acceptation; 
and  surely  it  will  be  possible  still  to 
cherish  toward  his  person  that  supreme 
reverence  and  loyalty  without  which  he 
cannot  be  for  any  of  us  the  ultimate 
world-Eedeemer.  Acceptance — ^yes,  un- 
yielding advocacy — ^by  Wesley  of  the 
current  delusion  of  witchcraft  scarcely 
affects  our  reverence  for  his  religious 
leadership.  So  in  the  more  vital  in- 
stance. It  can  be  said  by  great  and  loyal 
Christians    that    Jesus    was    an    **ec- 

[139] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

static,''  a  ''visionary";  for  great  and 
loyal  Christians,  men  whose  faith  is 
proved  by  their  works,  have  said  it,  and 
continue  to  say  it.  But  there  are  none 
such  who  can  wish  to  say  it;  and  those 
who  accept  the  view  can  have  little  fault 
to  find  with  a  Munkacsy  if  (as  protest- 
ing faith  declares)  he  has  ''painted  the 
Christ  with  the  face  of  a  fanatic." 

The  verdict  of  historical  criticism  can- 
not be  swerved  by  clamor.  Only  evi- 
dence will  affect  it;  and  the  world  of 
faith  must  rest  in  its  ancient  loyalty 
while  'mythic'  and  'eschatologist'  weigh 
the  relative  significance  of  ancient  titles 
and  their  use.  Meantime  it  may  be  well 
to  point  out  for  'the  intelligent  reader,' 
who  is  not  a  technical  adept,  what  differ- 
ent characterizations  of  Jesus  exist 
within  the  compass  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment. Such  differences  are  not  appar- 
ent to  eyes  accustomed  to  read  only 
from  the  viewpoint  of  the  harmonist. 
When  the  assumption  is  that  all  sacred 
writers  must  say  the  same  thing  lest 
occasion  be  given  to  the  enemy  to  blas- 
pheme, comparisons  are  both  odious  and 

[140] 


Chabacterization  of  Jesus 

sterile.  If,  however,  we  proceed  upon 
the  critic's  assumption  that  the  wider 
the  contrast  the  broader  the  basis  of 
judgment,  comparison  may  be  expected 
to  yield  results  both  ampler  and  more 
secure  than  indiscriminate  acceptance. 

It  is,  for  example,  a  fact  of  no  merely 
casual  significance  that  the  title  Son  of 
man,  so  pervasive  in  the  Gospels,  espe- 
cially in  the  personal  utterances  of 
Jesus,  utterly  disappears  in  the  Epistles, 
whether  those  of  Paul,  which  so  far  ante- 
date the  Gospels,  or  in  those  of  post- 
Pauline  origin.  Apart  from  the  single 
occurrence  in  Acts  7 :  56  and  one  in 
Hegesippus '  similar  account  of  the  mar- 
tyrdom of  James,  the  **  favorite  self- 
designation  of  Jesus''  disappears  as 
soon  as  we  pass  beyond  the  limits  of 
Gospel  literature.^  There  are  grounds 
for  believing  the  title  *Son  of  man,'  and 
the  conceptions  involved  in  it,  well 
known  to  Paul;  for  he  employs  (I  Cor. 
15:27)    the  Psalm  passage    (Ps.   8:7) 

5  It  occurs  once  in  a  fragment  of  the  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  the  Hebrews.  Hegesippus  also  is  a  Palestinian 
authority  and  used  this  Gospel. 

[141] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

applied  in  this  sense  by  primitive  be- 
lievers,® and  Ms  doctrine  of  Christ  as 
the  ** heavenly  man''  (I  Cor.  15:  49)  and 
**last  Adam''  (I  Cor.  15 :  45)  is  probably 
connected  with  rabbinic  speculation  re- 
garding this  transcendental  Being  of  the 
apocalyptic  writers.  Moreover  he  thinks 
of  Jesns  as  agent  of  the  impending  judg- 
ment of  God.  The  Thessalonians  had 
been  taught  in  his  message  of  evangel- 
lization  ^*to  wait  for  God's  Son  from 
heaven,  even  Jesus,  who  delivereth  us 
from  the  wrath  to  come,"  the  Corin- 
thians are  warned  that  all  **must  stand 
before  the  judgment  seat  of  Christ." 
These  are  doctrines  involving  an  identi- 
fication of  Jesus  with  the  apocalyptic 
figure  of  Dan.  7:9,  13f.,  the  **one  like 
unto  a  son  of  man,"  that  is,  one  in  hu- 
man form,  representative  of  Israel,  as 
against  the  monsters  who  are  declared 
to  represent  temporary  and  hostile  king- 

6  The  author  of  Hebrews  (85-90  A.  D.)  employs  the 
two  Scriptures  used  by  Paul  in  I  Cor.  15:  25-27  as 
the  basis  of  his  Christological  argument,  viz.,  Pss.  8 
and  110.  Ps.  8  is  the  basis  of  his  argument  that 
Christ  as  the  Son  and  human,  is  higher  than  angels, 
Heb.  2:5-18. 

[142] 


Chakactebization  of  Jesus 

doms.  This  mysterious  Son  of  man,  who 
in  the  vision  of  Daniel  is  brought  **on 
the  clouds  of  heaven  * '  to  the  divine  pres- 
ence, occupies  there  one  of  the  'thrones 
of  judgment''  and  enters  upon  his 
** everlasting  dominion.''  He  figures  to 
some  extent  in  later  apocalypses,  also, 
and  is  certainly  meant  in  the  title  which 
plays  so  large  a  part  in  the  Gospels, 
though  its  meaning  there  is  already 
taken  for  granted,  not  explained.  The 
idea  is  also  present  hy  implication  in 
Paul,  in  spite  of  the  entire  absence  of  the 
title;  but  the  whole  conception  remains 
in  the  background  of  his  thought.  It  is 
not  a  leading  idea.  The  prophecies  of 
the  Son  of  man  are  never  appealed  to. 
It  is  barely  possible  in  the  single  in- 
stance of  I  Cor.  15 :  27  to  detect  an  allu- 
sion to  Ps.  8 ;  7.  There  is  no  reference 
to  Daniel,  and  no  suggestion  that  Jesus 
had  ever  given  utterance  to  the  claim  on 
his  own  behalf.  The  conclusion  is  irre- 
sistible that  the  doctrine  is  rather  ad- 
mitted than  advanced  by  Paul.  It  does 
not  furnish  the  soil  for  his  own  Chris- 
tological  thinking,  which  is   rooted  in 

[143] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

the  Wisdom  literature  of  Alexandrian 
Judaism  rather  than  in  the  Palestinian 
apocalyptic.  In  general,  the  phenomena 
of  Pauline  usage  are  altogether  opposed 
to  the  idea  that  Jesus '  own  message  was 
primarily  eschatological,  or  that  he 
himself  made  the  title  Son  of  man  his 
own  '^favorite  self -designation. " 

These  are  certainly  important  and 
significant  facts  in  the  Christology  of 
Paul,  our  earliest  and  most  authentic 
witness.  But  their  bearing  on  the  ques- 
tion of  the  character  of  the  historical 
Jesus  is  indirect,  and  principally  nega- 
tive. Our  doubts  of  the  claim  of  the 
*  consistent  eschatologists '  to  hold  the 
key  to  the  entire  problem  are  very  de- 
cidedly strengthened,  but  Paul's  atti- 
tude toward  the  *Son  of  man'  doctrine 
throws  very  little  light  on  the  personal 
character  of  Jesus. 

The  case  is  similar  in  one  respect  with 
another  messianic  title  rarely  applied 
to  Jesus  in  early  Christian  literature, 
but  associated  with  a  circle  of  ideas  at 
once  so  distinctive,  so  fundamental  and 
so  irresistibly  attested,  that  its  primi- 

[144] 


Chakacteeization  of  Jesus 

tive  currency  is  undeniable.  It  is  the 
title  *  Servant'  or  ^  Child  of  God'  ( TraTs 
6eov  ) ,  derived  from  the  poems  of  the 
post-exilic  Isaiah,  wherein  this  figure  of 
the  Servant — for  the  Hebrew  term  ebed 
Yahweh  has  not  the  double  sense  of  its 
Greek  rendering  Trats  Kvpiov  — ^is  em- 
ployed of  the  martyr-people,  scattered 
among  the  nations  without  inheritance, 
like  Levi  among  the  tribes,  a  priest-na- 
tion endowed  only  with  knowledge  of  the 
true  God,  but  destined  **by  his  knowl- 
edge ' '  to  *  *  justify  many. ' '  In  his  humil- 
iation judgment  was  taken  away  from 
him,  he  was  smitten,  afflicted,  despised, 
oppressed.  This,  however,  was  willingly 
suffered  for  the  transgression  of  God's 
people;  and  not  only  of  these,  but  even 
of  the  Gentiles.  These  had  been  aston- 
ished at  his  affliction,  but  they  would 
come  to  the  light  of  his  rising,  and  be 
sprinkled  with  the  purifying  drops  of 
his  '*  sin-off ering. "  Thus,  whereas  he 
had  been  brought  low,  **  despised  and 
rejected  of  men,"  the  *  Servant'  would  be 
*  *  exalted  and  be  very  high, ' '  he  would  be 
given   a   portion   with   the   great,   and 

[145] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

would  distribute  the  spoil  of  the  strong : 
**  because  be  poured  out  his  soul  unto 
death,  and  was  numbered  with  the  trans- 
gressors, and  bare  the  sin  of  many,  and 
made  intercession  for  the  transgress- 
ors.'" 

Like  the  title  *Son  of  man,'  the  title 
*  Servant  of  God'  is  completely  wanting 
from  the  Pauline  Epistles.  It  is  almost 
wholly  wanting  from  the  New  Testa- 
ment, occurring  but  four  times,  all  four 
in  a  special  section  of  the  Book  of  Acts. 
And  yet  we  have  the  explicit  testimony 
of  Paul  himself  that  the  doctrine  formed 
part  of  the  fundamental  gospel  **  re- 
ceived" by  himself  and  preached  in  com- 
mon by  all  (I  Cor.  15 : 4).  Even  without 
this  explicit  statement  we  might  have 
inferred  from  the  subtle  allusions  and 


7  In  the  above  paraphrase  the  rendering  of  the 
Septuagint  has  been  followed  where  it  seems  to  con- 
trol the  thought  of  Paul;  e.g.,  *' divide  the  spoil  of  the 
strong  ones''  (Is.  53:  12;  cf.  Col.  2:  15).  The  figure 
of  the  ''kingdom  of  priests"  (Ex.  19:  6)  controls 
from  Is.  52:  15  to  53:  12.  The  ''pouring  out"  of 
the  life-blood,  "bearing  (literally  "lifting  off")  the 
sin  of  many,"  and  "making  intercession  for  the 
transgressors"  represent  the  function  of  the  priest 
in  the  ' '  sin-offering  " ;  cf .  Lev.  9 :  9,  18-24,  and  Eom. 
4:  25;  5:  1,  9;  8:  34;  II  Cor.  5:  21;  Eph.  5:  2,  etc. 

ri46i 


Chabacterization  of  Jesus 

echoed  Isaian  phrases  in  Paul's  epis- 
tles that  he  applied  the  Isaian  figure  of 
the  suffering  Servant  to  Jesus,  just  as 
is  more  openly  done  in  I  Pt.  2 :  21-25. 
But  the  absence  of  explicit  use  is  even 
more  remarkable  in  this  case  than  in 
that  of  the  title  Son  of  man.  Nowhere 
does  Paul  appeal  to  the  prophecy,  nor 
openly  cite  it.  The  whole  conception 
remains  in  the  background  of  his 
thought;  this  time,  fortunately,  accom- 
panied by  an  explicit  statement  that  it 
did  belong  to  the  common  primitive 
** received"  belief. 

The  case  differs,  however,  from  that 
of  the  title  'Son  of  man'  and  its  group 
of  connected  ideas,  in  that  the  Isaian 
figure  of  the  *  Servant'  has  an  earthly 
ministry,  a  human  character;  whereas 
the  Danielle  'Son  of  man'  has  none. 
The  characteristics  of  the  Servant  are 
unmistakably  distinctive.  ''Meekness  of 
wisdom"  is  his  salient  attribute.  Unself- 
ish service,  uncomplaining  acceptance 
of  wrong,  humble  obedience  to  the  will 
of  God,  even  unto  death,  service  not  of 
friends  alone,  but  of  enemies,  even  to  the 

[147] 


Chbistianity  Old  and  New 

pouring  out  of  his  life-blood  for  their 
forgiveness.  These  are  the  distinctive 
characteristics  of  the  Servant.  The  law 
of  his  action  is  to  **bear  others'  bur- 
dens." The  **mind"  that  is  in  him  is 
that  which  ** seeks  not  its  own/'  but 
**beareth  all  things,  believeth  all  things, 
hopeth  all  things,  endureth  all  things." 
It  ^^suffereth  long  and  is  kind";  it  **en- 
vieth  not,"  it  **vaunteth  not  itself,  is  not 
puffed  up,  is  not  provoked,  taketh  not 
account  of  evil,  rejoiceth  not  in  unright- 
eousness but  rejoiceth  with  the  truth." 
In  short,  it  is  a  spirit  of  the  wisdom  of 
God,  peaceable,  and  easy  to  be  entreated, 
a  spirit  of  faith  and  hope,  but  above  all 
things  and  everlastingly  it  is  a  spirit  of 
unselfish,  ministering  love. 

Can  it  be  doubted  whose  spirit  Paul 
has  in  mind  when  he  defines  to  the  won- 
der-loving Corinthians  which  are  the 
greater,  the  abiding  ^^  gifts  of  the 
Spirit"?  If  doubt  there  could  be,  then 
we  should  appeal  to  the  few  but  signi- 
ficant direct  characterizations  of  Jesus 
in  his  writings,  the  reference  to  the 
** meekness   and  gentleness  of  Christ" 

[148] 


Chakactekization  of  Jesus 

(II  Cor.  10:1),  the  declaration  that 
*  *  Christ  also  pleased  not  himself,  but  as 
it  is  written,  the  reproaches  of  them  that 
reproached  thee  fell  npon  me''  (Eom. 
15 :  3),  the  appeal  to  **the  law  of  Christ'' 
in  Gal.  6:  If.  as  involving  rulership  ^4n 
a  spirit  of  meekness"  for  the  help  of 
the  weak.  We  should  appeal  to  the 
whole  depiction  in  Phil.  2 : 1-11  of  the 
second  Adam,  who  not  vainglorionsly 
** seeking  his  own  things,"  nor  counting 
it  (like  the  first  Adam)  **a  booty  to  be 
lawlessly  seized  to  be  equal  with  God," 
**  humbled  himself  and  took  on  him  the 
form  of  a  slave,*  and  became  obedient 
unto  death,  yea,  even  the  death  of  the 
cross. ' '  With  all  due  reserve  as  to  ques- 
tions of  derivation  and  authorship,  we 
should  add  also  the  word  of  Jesus  cited 
in  Paul's  farewell  address  to  the  elders 
of  the  Ephesian  Church  (Acts  20 :  35)  as 
summing  up  the  whole  spirit  of  the  Mas- 
ter's  primacy:  **Ye  ought  to  help  the 

8  Even  here,  Phil.  2: 7,  the  Greek  word  is  not  the 
ambiguous  irats  =  ^servant,'  'child/  but  SoOXos  'slave/ 
corresponding  to  the  Septuagint  rendering  of  Is.  53: 11, 
'doing  good  service  as  a  slave  for  many'  (ed  dovXeiovra 
iroWois. ) 

[149] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

weak,  and  to  remember  the  words  of  the 
Lord  Jesus,  how  he  himself  said,  It  is 
more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. ' ' 

This  embodies  practically  all  that  the 
Pauline  writings  afford®  to  throw  light 
upon  the  character  of  Jesus  as  Paul 
understood  it.  It  is  not  intended  to  fur- 
nish a  pen-portrait.  It  is  not  specific 
or  detailed.  It  has  the  defect  (if  de- 
fect it  be)  that  it  follows  a  conventional 
model.  Paul  is  thinking  of  Jesus  in  the 
character  of  the  *  suffering  Servant'  of 
Isaiah.  But  how  else  should  we  expect 
the  character  of  Jesus  to  impress  itself 
on  the  men  through  whom  we  come  in 
touch  with  him,  than  in  the  mould  of 
such  conventionalized  forms?  Is  Paul 
really  thinking  only  of  an  abstraction 
when  he  says,  **I  live  in  the  faith  of  the 
Son  of  God,  who  loved  me  and  gave  him- 
self up  for  me,'*  because  the  phraseol- 
ogy {irapaSoPTos  kavrov  virep  ifjLov)  is  bor- 
rowed from  Is.  53 :  6  and  12  ?  Is  this 
deep  sense  of  personal  devotion  kindled 

9  ' '  The  forbearance ' '  or  ' '  long-suffering ' '  of  Jesus 
is  referred  to  in  I  Tim.  1:  16;  but  the  direct  Pauline 
authorship  is  more  than  doubtful.  The  agreement  of 
this  allusion  with  the  rest  is,  however,  worth  noting. 

[150] 


Chakactebization  of  Jesus 

by  the  thought  that  the  martyr-people, 
the  suffering  Servant  of  the  post-exilic 
poem,  had  suffered  for  Paul's  sake;  or 
that  Jesus  of  Nazareth  had  so  suffered? 
Grant  that  Paul  thinks  of  Jesus  in  the 
character  of  the  Servant,  this  at  least 
is  sure :  If  the  character  of  the  historic 
Jesus  had  not  been  distinguished  for 
the  traits  of  ** meekness  and  gentleness," 
unselfish  generosity,  forbearance,  min- 
istering and  forgiving  love,  the  effort  to 
present  him  in  this  character  would  not 
have  met  success.  It  could  not,  then, 
have  been  part  of  the  primitive  *^  re- 
ceived'' Christology  that  he  was  the  suf- 
fering Servant  of  the  Isaian  poem  who 
*^died  for  our  sins  according  to  the 
Scriptures."  Doubtless  critical  accu- 
racy will  demand  that  some  discount  be 
made  on  the  score  of  idealizing  con- 
formation to  the  conventional  type  rep- 
resentative of  the  martyr-people.  Still 
we  can  hardly  affirm  that  Paul  has  left 
us  in  the  dark  as  to  **the  moral  and  reli- 
gious personal  character  of  Jesus";  or 
that  it  **had  no  influence  or  significance" 
for  his  religious  feeling,  when  he  de- 

[151] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

clared  **As  many  as  are  led  by  the  Spirit 

of  God  they  are  the  sons  of  God 

If  any  man  have  not  the  Spirit  of  Christ 
he  is  none  of  his/'  When  he  held  np 
the  standard  of  the  true  and  abiding 
** gifts  of  the  Spirit''  as  being  such  as 
are  defined  in  the  great  lyric  of  love  of 
I  Cor.  13,  the  delineation  of  Christlike- 
ness  was  at  least  sufficiently  definite  for 
the  needs  of  religion.  Paul  did  *^know 
him  whom  he  had  believed, ' '  and  though 
this  knowledge  was  not  **  after  the 
flesh,"  yet  he  has  given  meaning  to  the 
term  **the  spirit  of  Christ,"  a  meaning 
which  is  not  useless  for  lack  of  moral 
precision. 

It  is  a  wholly  different  conception 
which  predominates  in  the  Gospel  of 
Mark  and  extends  from  it  into  the  two 
other  Gospels  which  base  their  narrative 
element  almost  exclusively  upon  Mark. 
Here,  as  in  Paul,  the  title  *  Servant  of 
God'  is  completely  wanting,  and  even 
the  conception  has  left  but  the  scantiest 
verbal  traces.  There  is  no  specific  ap- 
peal to  the  Isaian  prophecy,  and 
scarcely  a  reference  to  any  scriptural 

ri52i 


Chaeacterizatioit  of  Jesus 

prediction  of  Jesus'  fate;  though  Jesus 
repeatedly  predicts  his  own  fate,  and  in 
detail.^^  But  in  two  instances  (Mk.  10: 
45  and  14 :  24)  the  language  and  thought 
in  combination  show  that  the  suffering 
Servant  who  bears  the  sin  of  *^many'' 
in  his  death  is  remembered  in  connec- 
tion with  the  sacrament.  Elsewhere  the 
Gospel  of  Mark  contains  scarcely  a  trace 
of  this  Isaian  conception  of  Jesus.  It 
has  no  occurrence  of  the  words  for 
*  meekness'  and  *  gentleness,'  nor  any  of 
their  cognates.  Humility  is  never  pre- 
dicated of  Jesus,  nor  is  anything  said 
of  his  forbearance  and  long-suffering  of 
evil.  There  is  no  attempt  to  present 
him  in  the  role  of  the  Servant  as  pro- 
claiming glad  tidings  to  the  poor.  His 
distinctive  and  characteristic  trait  in 
Mark  is  *' authority. "  He  looks  round 
upon  the  narrow  and  intolerant  scribes 

10  The  references  to  scriptural  prediction  are  Mk. 
9:  12b  and  14:  21,  neither  reference  giving  any  clear 
indication  what  ' '  Scripture  "  is  in  mind.  The  former 
passage  is  rightly  judged  by  most  critics  (so  Bousset, 
Eyrios  Christos,  p.  7f.)  to  be  an  early  gloss.  It 
does  not  appear  in  Luke  and  is  transposed  in  Mt. 
17:  12  to  its  logical  position.  The  sense  requires  that 
it  should  stand  after  verse  13.  It  seems  to  have  crept 
in  from  the  margin  at  the  wrong  place. 

[153] 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

**with  anger,  being  grieved  at  the  hard- 
ening of  their  hearf  (3:5).  For  those 
who  had  said  he  had  **an  unclean 
spirit'^  he  has  a  warning  of  **sin  that 
hath  never  forgiveness''  (3:  29).  From 
the  superscription:  **The  beginning  of 
the  gospel  of  Jesus  Christ  the  Son 
of  God''  (Mk.  1:1)"  to  the  exclama- 
tion of  the  centurion  at  the  cross, 
couched  in  the  phraseology  of  hea- 
then myth,  '*  Truly  this  was  a  son 
of  God"  (Mk.  15:39),  Mark  presents 
his  central  figure  in  *  heroic'  proportions. 
The  *  mighty  works'  of  Jesus  occupy  the 
foreground;  the  *  words  of  grace'  of 
Lukan  story  have  almost  disappeared. 
There  is  no  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  no 
discourse  on  True  Wealth,  none  on 
Prayer,  none  on  the  Forgiving  Father. 
The  two  Markan  examples  of  Jesus' 
teaching  are  the  chapter  of  parables 
(Mk.  4),  interpreted  by  the  evangelist 
(verses  10-12)  as  a  preaching  of  judg- 
ment against  those  who  *  having  eyes  see 
not,  and  having  ears  hear  not'  and  the 

11  Some  ancient  authorities  omit  "the  Son  of  God''; 
but  the  conception  reappears  frequently  in  the  GospeL 

[154] 


Chabacterization  of  Jesus 

utterance  of  doom  upon  Jerusalem  (Mk. 
13).  The  title,  *Son  of  man,'  is  freely 
employed  (in  utterances  of  Jesus),  but 
never  explained.  It  seems  as  much  in 
the  background  as  in  Paul.  The  title — 
or  rather  the  conception — to  which  all 
leads  up  is  introduced  by  Jesus  himself 
at  a  significant  point.  It  is  at  the  con- 
clusion of  the  long  chapter  of  disputing 
in  the  temple  (Mk.  12).  Successively 
Pharisee,  Sadducee,  and  scribe  have  ad- 
vanced, put  their  question,  and  retired 
discomfited.  * '  No  man,  after  that,  * '  says 
the  evangelist,  **  durst  ask  him  any  ques- 
tion. "  It  is  now  Jesus '  turn  to  take  the 
aggressive. 

And  Jesus  answered  and  said,  as  he  taught 
in  the  temple:  How  say  the  scribes  that  the 
Christ  is  the  son  of  David?     David  himself 
said  in  the  Holy  Spirit : 
The  Lord  said  unto  my  Lord, 
Sit  thou  on  my  right  hand 
Till  I  make  thine  enemies  the  footstool  of  thy 

feet. 
David  himself  calleth  him  LORD ;  and  whence 

is  he  his  son  ? 

We  have  met  before  in  Paul  a  re- 
peated employment  of  Ps.  110 :  1  as  ap- 

[155] 


Chbistianity  Old  and  New 

plying  to  the  exaltation  of  Jesus  to  *Hlie 
right  hand  of  God, ' '  and  in  Acts  2 :  34, 
where  again  it  applies  to  the  *^  ascend- 
ing into  the  heavens.''  We  need  not 
here  repeat  the  arguments  employed 
elsewhere^^  to  show  what  others  have 
contended  for  on  other  grounds,  that 
this  citation  cannot  be  an  authentic 
utterance  of  Jesus  in  regard  to  himself. 
It  is  the  evangelist's  adaptation  of  a 
*  messianic'  Scripture,  directed  prima- 
rily against  the  Jews,  but  also  showing 
his  attitude  toward  that  narrower  con- 
ception of  Jesus  which  expressed  itself 
in  the  title  *  Son  of  David. '  *  Christ, '  or 
*Son  of  God,'  rather  than  *Lord'  is 
Mark's  distinctive  messianic  title;  but 
this  paragraph  fully  expresses  his  own 
Christology,  and  sounds  the  keynote  for 
his  own  conception  of  Christ.  Jesus, 
from  the  time  of  his  adoption  by  the 
Spirit^^  and  the  heavenly  Voice,  became 
a  superhuman  authority.     He  already 

12  Bacon,  Beginnings  of  Gospel  Story,  p.  175;  cf. 
Bousset,  Kyrios  Christ os,  p.  51. 

13  Mark  uses  the  title  '  Son  of  man '  frequently,  but 
without  explanation  of  its  meaning.  He  seems  to 
regard  it  as  involving  an  enigmatic  claim  of  authority. 

[156] 


Chabacterization  of  Jesus 

sits  at  the  right  hand  of  God,  from 
henceforth  expecting  until  his  enemies 
be  made  the  footstool  of  his  feet.  There 
is  more  of  defiance  than  of  humility  in 
the  parting  word  of  Jesus  to  the  assem- 
bled **  chief  priests  and  scribes  and  eld- 
ers of  the  people''  when,  according  to 
Mark,  in  answer  to  the  challenge  of  the 
high  priest:  **Art  thou  the  Christ,  the 
son  of  the  Blessed?''  he  answers: 

I  am:  and  ye  shall  see  the  Son  of  man 
sitting  at  the  'right  hand  of  power'  and  com- 
ing with  the  'clouds  of  heaven.' 

The  whole  Gospel  of  Mark  is  a  charac- 
terization of  Jesus.  It  is  written  for 
that  purpose  far  more  than  to  convey 
his  teaching.  The  traits  we  have  em- 
phasized in  the  portrait  are  indeed  not 
the  only  ones.  Jesus  receives  the  little 
ones,  rebuking  the  disciples  who  would 
forbid  them,  looks  lovingly  on  the  kneel- 
ing figure  of  the  rich  young  man,  sets  the 
example  of  unselfish  devotion  unto  death 
for  the  ** ransom  of  many."  But  the 
salient  traits  in  the  Markan  portrait  are 
traits  of  heroism,  virility,  and  power. 

[157] 


Cheistianity  Old  and  New 

The  contrast  between  this  conception 
and  that  of  Paul  conld  hardly  be 
stronger  within  the  limits  of  fidelity  to 
historic  fact. 

And  true  to  fact  it  is.  We  may  even 
say  that  the  fate  of  Jesus  at  the  hands 
of  Jewish  and  Roman  authorities  would 
be  unaccountable  had  his  character  and 
career  been  only  such  as  delineated 
by  Paul.  Certainly  the  stormy  and  im- 
petuous devotion  of  his  followers,  which 
within  a  few  days  of  the  tragedy  of  Cal- 
vary had  already  acclaimed  him  as 
** seated  at  the  right  hand  of  power/' 
and  about  to  **come  with  the  clouds  of 
heaven,"  would  be  utterly  unaccount- 
able. But  the  historicity  is  not  apart 
from  idealization.  Mark,  too,  has  his 
ideal  conception  of  **the  Christ  the  Son 
of  God'*  and  gives  what  he  has  of  cur- 
rent historical  tradition  in  the  manner 
and  to  the  extent  that  will  best  sub- 
serve the  identification.  This,  too,  be- 
longs to  the  nature  of  the  source;  but 
it  does  not  invalidate  the  testimony. 
Mark's  story  of  Jesus'  career  has  little 
to  tell  of  the  inward  man.    But  it  throws 

[158] 


Chaeacteeization  of  Jesus 

new  light  upon  it  by  giving  the  character 
its  setting.  Little  indeed  should  we 
know  of  Jesus  as  he  was,  but  for  the 
Gospel  of  Mark. 

And  lastly  there  is  Q.  The  work  of 
critical  analysis  is  still  so  incomplete 
that  one  can  hardly  speak  with  assur- 
ance. And  yet  the  leading  facts  are 
assured.  It  is  an  older  source  than 
Mark,  older  perhaps  than  the  greater 
epistles  of  Paul.  And  it  is  by  no  means 
a  mere  collection  of  the  precepts  of 
Jesus.  Critics  have  maintained,  on 
grounds  not  convincing  to  the  present 
writer,  that  it  had  no  story  of  the  pas- 
sion and  resurrection.  But  as  to  its 
introduction  of  the  person  and  work  of 
Jesus  there  can  be  no  dispute.  It  not 
only  began  its  story  of  Jesus '  career  with 
an  account  of  his  baptism  and  tempta- 
tion, but  placed  the  nature  of  his  minis- 
try in  explicit  contrast  with  the  Bap- 
tist's, reproaching  the  generation  which 
was  ** stumbled  in  him,''  because  it 
called  the  one  *  demon-ridden, "  and  the 
other  **a  glutton,  a  friend  of  publicans 
and  sinners."    Q  not  only  characterizes 

[  159  1 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

Jesus '  career  and  ministry.  It  places  it 
in  careful,  systematic  antithesis  to  the 
*  eschatologicaP  ministry  of  John.  The 
Baptist  had  come  like  Jonah  to  the  Nine- 
vites  crying,  Yet  forty  days  and  Nine- 
veh shall  be  destroyed.  His  ministry 
was  a  sign  from  God  to  an  unbelieving 
generation,  but  not  the  greatest  sign. 
The  works  of  mercy  and  grace,  the  glad 
tidings  to  the  poor,  forgiveness  and 
restoration,  the  winning  gracious  appeal 
of  a  divine  Father  ^s  love,  which  consti- 
tuted the  ministry  of  Jesus,  were  **a 
greater  matter  than  Solomon,^'  a  final 
plea  of  **the  Wisdom  of  God''  whose 
function  is  to  seek  out  and  save  the 
erring.  ** Wisdom's  children"  receive 
it." 

The  conception  of  Jesus  presented  in 
Q  is  that  of  the  Servant  of  God  who  is 
the  incarnation  of  His  redeeming  Spirit 
of  Wisdom.  This  was  made  evident  in 
its  opening  scenes.     Its  account  of  his 

1*  In  this  paraphrase  of  the  Q  discourse  on  Israel 's 
'stumbling'  at  the  Christ  (Mt.  11  and  Lk.  7:  18-35), 
it  has  been  assumed  without  the  demonstration  pub- 
lished elsewhere  (Bacon,  Sermon  on  the  Mount,  p. 
232)  that  the  Sign  of  Jonah  had  original  reference 
to  the  ministry,  not  of  Jesus,  but  of  the  Baptist. 

[160] 


Chabacteeization  of  Jesus 

baptism  (if  we  may  judge  from  sur- 
viving remnants)  was  framed  on  the 
model  of  the  Isaian  scene  of  the  calling 
of  the  Servant-son,  endowed  with  the 
spirit  of  divine  wisdom.  We  have  rea- 
son to  believe  the  rendering  of  the  Isaian 
passage  (Is.  42: 1-4)  was  that  employed 
in  Mt.  12 :  18-21  for  another  purpose : 

Behold  my  Servant  ( iraTs  )  whom  I  have 
chosen, 

My  Beloved  on  whom  my  soul  fixed  her  choice ; 

I  will  put  my  Spirit  upon  him, 

And  he  shall  proclaim  judgment  to  the  Gen- 
tiles. 

He  shall  not  strive  nor  cry, 

Nor  shall  any  hear  his  voice  in  the  streets, 

A  bruised  reed  will  he  not  break. 

Nor  smoking  flax  will  he  quench. 

Till  he  bring  forth  judgment  unto  victory; 

And  in  his  name  the  Gentiles  shall  hope. 

The  Markan  story  of  the  descent  of 
the  Spirit  on  Jesus  at  his  baptism  and 
the  Voice  from  heaven  proclaiming 
**Thou  art  my  Son,  the  Beloved,  on 
whom  my  soul  fixed  her  choice'*  is  but 
a  pragmatized  form  of  the  Isaian  con- 
ception, just  as  the  story  of  the  tempta- 

[  161  ] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

tion  which  followed  is  abbreviated  and 
reduced  to  hard  and  concrete  fact  in 
the  two  verses  Mk.  1 :  12f .  In  Q  a  three- 
fold contrast  is  drawn  between  the 
career  of  the  Servant-son  as  conceived 
by  men,  and  as  conceived  by  the  wisdom 
of  God.  In  two  of  the  three  the  figure  of 
the  Servant-son  is  the  Isaian,  as  repro- 
duced and  developed  in  the  pre-Chris- 
tian Alexandrian  writing,  the  Wisdom  of 
Solomon,  where  the  title  is  used  not  in 
the  sense  of  *  Servant,'  but  *Son'  of  God 
and  interchangeably  with  vl6<;,  as  a  de- 
signation of  Israel,  God's  agent  for 
**  giving  the  race  of  men  the  incorrupt- 
ible light  of  the  law. '  '^^  Here  we  read  of 
Israel's  forty-year  temptation  in  the 
wilderness,  where  they  had  lived  by 
God's  ** all-nourishing  bounty," 

That  thy  sons  whom  thou  lovedst,  0  Lord, 

might  learn 
That  it  is  not  the  growth  of  earth 's  fruits  that 

nourisheth  men, 
But  that  thy  word  preserveth  them  that  trust 

thee.^« 


15  Sap.  18:  4. 

16  Sap.  16 :  25f . 


162] 


Chaeacterization  of  Jesus 

And  still  more  distinctly  does  the  de- 
scription of  IsraePs  humiliation  as  the 
martyr-people  in  Wisdom  2 :  12-20  pre- 
sent the  lesson  of  the  Gospel  temptation 
of  the  *  ^  Son' '  to  expect  supernatural  aid. 
In  Wisdom  2 :  12-20  the  wicked  say  of 
Israel,  the  Servant-son: 

Let  us  lie  in  wait  for  the  Righteous  man, 

Because  he  is  of  disservice  to  us 

And  is  contrary  to  our  works 

And  upbraideth  us  with  sins  against  the  law 

And  layeth  to  our  charge  sins  against  our 

discipline. 
He  professeth  to  have  knowledge  (yvwo-ts)  of 

God 
And  nameth  himself  Servant  (ttol?)  of  the 

Lord. 
He  became  to  us  a  reproof  of  our  thoughts. 
He  is  grievous  unto  us  even  to  behold, 
Because  his  life  is  unlike  other  men's. 
And  his  paths  are  of  strange  fashion. 
We  were  accounted  of  him  as  base  metal. 
And  he  abstaineth  from  our  ways  as  from 

uncleannesses. 
The  latter  end  of  the  righteous  he  calleth 

happy 
And  he  vaunteth  that  God  is  his  father. 
Let  us  see  if  his  words  be  true. 
And  let  us  try  what  shall  befall  in  his  ending. 

ri63  1 


Christianity  Old  and  New 

For  if  the  Righteous  man  is  God 's  son  (  vios  ) , 

He  will  uphold  him 
And  He  will  deliver  him  out  of  the  hand  of 

his  adversaries. 
With  outrage  and  torture  let  us  put  him  to 

the  test 
That  we  may  know  his  gentleness 
And  may  test  his  patience  under  wrong. 
Let  us  condemn  him  to  a  shameful  death, 
For  he  shall  be  visited  according  to  his  words. 

What  Q  presented  as  the  career  and 
fate  of  **the  Son  of  God''  might  be  in- 
ferred from  the  temptation-story  with 
its  rejection  of  **the  kingdoms  of  the 
world  and  the  glory  of  them,"  and  its 
acceptance  of  hunger  and  danger  as  the 
predestined  way  that  the  Son  of  God 
must  go.  But  we  are  not  left  to  con- 
jecture as  to  the  nature  of  this  career. 
It  is  the  typical  career  which  in  the 
Alexandrian  Wisdom  literature  belongs 
to  the  spirit  of  divine  Wisdom  incarnate 
in  a  series  of  servants  (TratSe?)  of  the 
Lord  from  Noah  to  Solomon.  When  in 
Q  (Mt.  11:  25-30  and  Lk.  10:  21f.)  there 
is  placed  in  the  mouth  of  Jesus  a  typical 
Hymn  of  Wisdom  celebrating  the  knowl- 
edge of  God  given  to  **the  Son,"  and 

[164] 


Chaeactekization  of  Jesus 

commending  it  in  phraseology  taken 
largely  verbatim  from  the  Wisdom  writ- 
ers^^  to  *^ babes/'  this  is  meant  as  a 
commendation  of  the  teaching  of  Jesus 
as  a  whole.  It  is  the  yoke  of  the  lowly 
and  meek.  It  offers  eternal  rest  to  the 
soul.  The  poem  can  hardly  have  stood 
elsewhere  in  Q  than  at  the  conclusion  of 
Jesus '  teaching.  And  when  in  the  same 
Q  source  a  typical  Wisdom-plaint  is 
also  used  (Mt.  23:34-39  and  Lk.  11:49- 
51;  13:34f.),  denouncing  the  unbeliev- 
ing generation  whose  hands  are  stained 
with  the  blood  of  the  prophets,  and  espe- 
cially Jerusalem,  vainly  visited  with  re- 
peated loving  entreaty,  Jerusalem  whose 
house  is  now  forsaken  of  its  divine  ten- 
ant, we  cannot  be  in  doubt  as  to  the  kind 
of  fate  suffered  by  **the  Son  of  God*' 
whom  the  Baptism  and  Temptation  had 
so  poetically  introduced  upon  the  scene. 
It  is  almost  a  superfluous  note  when  one 
of  our  two  reporters  of  the  ancient  Gos- 
pel makes  the  utterance  in  express  terms 

17  On  the  literary  relations  of  Mt.  11 :  25-30,  see 
especially  Von  Norden,  Agnostos  Theos,  1913,  pp. 
277-308. 

[  165  ] 


Chkistianity  Old  and  New 

a    quotation    from    ^'The    Wisdom    of 
aod.''^« 

In  short,  the  Q  source  goes  further 
than  any  in  the  characterization  of  Jesus 
as  regards  his  ^^  personal  religious  and 
moral  character,''  and  at  the  same  time 
goes  to  at  least  equal  length  in  the  em- 
ployment of  a  conventional  ideal.  In 
the  Alexandrian  Wisdom  literature  the 
Isaian  suffering  Servant  had  become 
Israel  the  Servant-son,^^  whose  preroga- 
tive was  to  be  the  '  dwelling-place '  of  the 
divine  Wisdom-Spirit.  In  Q  this  con- 
ception was  applied  to  Jesus,  whose  mar- 
tyr-career exemplified  the  ideal  of  Isaiah 
and  of  the  Alexandrian  poets  as  well. 
Were  idealization  indeed  fatal  to  his- 
toric truth,  then  Q's  idealized  portrait 
of  Jesus  would  be  but  a  dream,  to  place 
beside  the  fainter  outline  we  derive  from 
Paul,  and  the  cruder  from  Mark.  But 
there  are  critical  grounds  cogent  enough 
to  win  from  scholars  as  able  and  as  di- 

18  Lk.  11 :  49, 

19  Hats  and  vl6s  are  used  interchangeably  in  Wis- 
dom of  Solomon.  The  sense  of  'servant'  (Heb.  el)ed) 
is  lost.  The  dropping  of  wats  in  favor  of  the  unam- 
biguous  vl6s   is  the  final  third  stage. 

[166] 


Chaeacterization  of  Jesus 

verse  in  their  views  as  Pfleiderer  and 
Harnack  the  belief  that  the  greater 
Pauline  letters  themselves  show  literary 
dependence  upon  Q.^°  This  remains  one 
of  the  problems  of  criticism.  For  the 
present  let  the  fact  suffice  that  with  Q 
we  return  to  a  conception  of  the  charac- 
ter of  Jesus  which  like  that  of  Paul  is 
fundamentally  based  on  the  Isaian  figure 
of  the  suffering  Servant  of  God,  who  by 
his  knowledge  justifies  many,  making  his 
soul  an  offering  for  sin. 

At  the  date  to  which  a  gospel  source 
must  be  assigned  that  if  not  employed 
by  Paul  himself  was  certainly  largely 
employed  by  both  Matthew  and  Luke, 
and  only  less  certainly,  though  scantily 
and  crudely,  by  Mark,  the  adoption  of 
such  an  ideal  as  the  basis  of  a  character- 
ization of  Jesus  is  not  within  the  prov- 
ince of  poetic  fancy.  Had  it  not  corre- 
sponded with  actual  recollection  it  could 

20  The  passage  in  question  is  the  famous  Hymn  of 
Wisdom  above  referred  to,  Mt.  11:  25-30  and  Lk.  10: 
21f.,  compared  with  I  Cor.  1:  18-25;  2:  1.  See  Har- 
nack, Spriiche  u.  Beden  Jesu,  p.  210,  n.  1,  quoting 
Pfleiderer,  Urchrist,  I2,  p.  435f.  [Eng.  Transl.,  The 
Sayings  of  Jesus,  p.  301,  note  1.] 

[167] 


Chbistianity  Old  and  New 

not  have  survived.  It  is  this  characteri- 
zation of  Pan!  and  what  we  might  call 
the  *  Hellenistic,'  perhaps  even  the  'Alex- 
andrian,' gospel  source,  which  holds 
foremost  place  in  all  the  writings  of  the 
sub-apostolic  age  not  actually  based  up- 
on the  Gospel  of  Mark  itself.  It  must  be 
placed  alongside  the  Markan,  its  sane 
and  sober  view  of  the  ministry,  its  more 
poetic  and  mystical  doctrine  of  Christ's 
person  and  the  significance  of  his  suf- 
fering must  be  weighed  along  with 
the  eschatological  and  *' wonder-loving" 
Mark,  if  we  would  form  a  just  and  con- 
sistent and  worthy  conception.  Only 
thus  can  we  appreciate  the  historic 
Jesus,  as  he  was  in  his  moral  and 
inward  character. 

Is  this  historic  Jesus,  dimly  and  yet 
truly  and  surely  seen  through  the  trans- 
figuring haze  of  love  and  adoration,  a 
true  Redeemer  of  the  world?  That  ques- 
tion will  be  answered  as  we  answer  one 
more  practical  and  real:  Is  his  doctrine 
of  the  kingdom  ultimate  as  a  social,  his 
doctrine  of  sonship  ultimate  as  an  indi- 
vidual, ideal?    If  so,  their  representative 

[168  1 


Chakacterization  of  Jesus 

is  one  in  whom  loyalty  can  never  meet 
disappointment.  Their  representative 
is  **  Christ  Jesus,  who  before  Pontius 
Pilate  witnessed  the  good  confession/' 

The  End. 


[169 


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